John Hutton: I first welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new responsibilities; it is a bit like old times for him and me. We spent many years—it felt like many years—debating care standards legislation in Standing Committee, so today brings back happy memories for me. [Hon. Members: "Give details."] I could—believe me, I could; it is tattooed on my brain. It is not a case at all of having to convince my right hon. and hon. Friends on this issue. We see in our constituencies the failures of the current system, which, to give the hon. Gentleman credit, he fairly said last week has led to a culture of benefit dependency. Of course, it is a system that his Government set up, and it has spectacularly failed millions of people throughout the country. I am sure that I will have support on the Labour Benches for my proposals, and I point out to the hon. Gentleman—as he probably expects me to—that I do not believe that he or his colleagues have anything to contribute to this debate, given their history in 18 years in government.

James Plaskitt: My hon. Friend is correct to say that since the agency began to operate there have been 3,000 such cases. However, the number of tests commissioned each year is falling. In the first full year of the agency's operation, there were more than 4,000 tests, but in the last complete year of operation there were fewer than 2,000. The percentage proving negative has been steady throughout, with just 300 such cases last year. I assure my hon. Friend that if a man is proved not to be the father, the cost of the DNA test is reimbursed as are any maintenance payments made. If a malicious claim is made by a mother, there are actions that the agency may take against her.

James Plaskitt: In most cases in which that becomes a matter of dispute, it is resolved long before maintenance comes into place. Disputes about parentage occur in various circumstances. Sometimes the dispute emerges early, with the claim being made by either party, but sometimes a dispute only arises once a man has been assessed as liable for maintenance. Then, and only then, he disputes parentage, usually for vexatious reasons. That results in an investigation to establish whether he is in fact the father.

John McFall: The Secretary of State has mentioned a national pension savings scheme whereby workers who are not enrolled in a company pension scheme would be automatically enrolled in such a system. Does he not agree that, at a stroke, that would help the low-paid workers who have been largely absent from the savings industry? Given that high costs have bedevilled the savings industry, does he not think that that pension scheme would be a catalyst to driving down provider charges?

Anne McGuire: We undertake a wide range of activities to ensure that pensioners receive the benefits to which they are entitled. This is done through direct mailings, leaflets and mass communications such as press and TV advertising as well as local take-up activity. In addition, since December 2005 customers who contact the pension credit application line to make an application for pension credit have been able to claim housing benefit and council tax benefit during the same call.

Margaret Hodge: I start by congratulating my hon. Friend on the extensive work that he has undertaken in the area of drug abuse. Having prepared for questions today and having seen his record, it is clear that he has added much to the information and knowledge that we have, and on which we can build our policies.
	I agree with my hon. Friend, and the issue of mental illness and its link to incapacity benefit claimants is something that we are considering. The proportion of people who start an incapacity benefit claim because of mental illness has doubled in the past 10 years, and four out of 10 of those now coming on to incapacity benefit do so because of mental illness. It is my view that if we can get much stronger and earlier intervention and support through the health service so that people have access to appropriate counselling therapies, we could prevent many people from getting on to the route of being locked into benefit dependency. There is much sense in what my hon. Friend says, and we are exploring the issue in the development of our Green Paper proposals.

David Taylor: Part 5 of the Bill deals with financial aspects, including the creation of a Welsh consolidated fund. Would it not be wise, in the light of the immense progress that has been made as a result of our Government's policies on Wales, to find a way of equalising the treatment of regions in England that are comparable with Wales in relation to the Barnett formula? Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire have almost identical populations to Wales, as well as a very similar social and economic mix, but our treatment as regards Government-distributed funds is less generous.

Nigel Evans: I am not here to fight old battles, but neither am I here to listen to history being rewritten. Why is the Secretary of State glorifying what he thinks are the Welsh Assembly's achievements when he knows that only one in four Welsh people voted for it in the referendum? He is talking about the voice of the people of Wales and their feeling closer to the Welsh Assembly, but he knows that at the last Assembly elections, the turnout was miserable. What is he going to do to reconnect the Welsh Assembly with the Welsh people?

Peter Hain: I will shall it with great enthusiasm. There is the Conservative party seeking to speak with a modern, consensual voice in the language and rhetoric of its new leader, but actually returning to the old anti-devolution, anti-Wales, anti-Welsh Assembly politics.
	Let me respond to the hon. Gentleman's point by quoting the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Nick Bourne. He said:
	"I think we have at the moment an insecure settlement which cannot persist.
	We either need to move forward to legislative powers or abolish the assembly and I think that's not an option. We've got to see how we can move things forward and that's got to mean legislative powers."
	He was accepting the need for new powers, whereas it appears that Conservative Front Benchers do not want to do that.

Cheryl Gillan: I think we should look quite closely at what the Secretary of State proposes in the Bill. Lord Richard has said:
	"Let's be frank about it, it is a device to avoid having to come to Westminster and ask for primary powers to be formally devolved . . . you end up with . . . a situation in which Cardiff ends up with greater powers, Westminster can say they have not devolved primary legislative powers".
	Is that not what the right hon. Gentleman is trying to do? He is trying to keep the Labour party happy at Westminster and the Labour party happy in the Welsh Assembly. He will end up appeasing neither, and cheating the people of Wales.

Cheryl Gillan: On one side of the argument, the Secretary of State wishes to minimise the changes and to say that the Orders in Council are very trivial; but on the other, he wants the powers to be substantial. Will he confirm that he received a letter from me, dated 21 December, in which I explained in words of one syllable that although I had tabled a reasoned amendment, it should not be interpreted as opposition to every element of the Bill, and that I reassured him that where we have common ground, he could expect our support? I hope that he will acknowledge that he received that letter and that he is misrepresenting my position, because I have told him and have given him every indication that I will be supportive where I believe that we have common ground and can work constructively. Otherwise, I think that the Bill deserves detailed scrutiny at every stage.

Peter Hain: I realise that the hon. Lady has had a lot of trouble in her early days as shadow Welsh Secretary. She did not know who the Welsh national rugby coach was; she did not know the number of Assembly Members; she did not even know what Brain's beer was. Now, she does not know the terms of her own reasoned amendment, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) suggests, would kill the Bill stone dead.
	We need to make some progress in getting more powers for Wales. The Welsh Assembly Government may not be any more admired than any level of government ever is, but they have won widespread praise for introducing innovative and popular policies—the Children's Commissioner for Wales, the Welsh baccalaureate, free bus travel for the over-60s and free school breakfasts, for example—some of which have been emulated elsewhere in the United Kingdom. After six years of activity and two full elections, it is right that we should take stock of how the devolution settlement in Wales is working and bring forward practical, commonsense reforms to ensure that it continues to meet the needs of the people of Wales.
	Much has changed since the House debated the original Government of Wales Bill. The budget of the National Assembly has nearly doubled, and the responsibilities of the Assembly have also increased. In the past 18 months alone, this House has resolved to transfer from Westminster to Cardiff Bay a number of important new policy areas: animal welfare, the fire and rescue services, student support and more children's services.
	Devolution has not stood still; it has evolved, and through the measures contained in this Bill it will evolve still further. But there is widespread acceptance of the need for reform. The Assembly's corporate status, modelled on local government, was an innovative idea in theory, which has proved less successful in practice. All parties accept the case for change, and the Bill will reform the internal architecture of the Assembly to provide for enhanced democratic accountability.

Peter Hain: I wish to make a little progress, and then I shall be happy to let the hon. Gentleman intervene.
	The Bill also ensures that, for the first time ever, primary powers for Wales are on the statute book, subject to a referendum. Some have shouted "betrayal" because primary powers are not being delivered immediately, but such a fundamental change from the 1997 settlement, which was endorsed by a referendum, could be changed only by another referendum. To advocates of primary powers, I say, "Don't shout at the Government, but go out and win the argument. Make the case to the people of Wales. If you win the argument, this Bill provides a mechanism for delivery. The ball is now in your court."
	An unwelcome development since the 1998 Act was passed has been the problem of defeated constituency candidates being elected through the backdoor on their party's regional list. Politicians are placing an each-way bet on constituency elections, with the electorate losing out. As a Government, we are determined to put the voters back in charge, restoring their democratic right to reject a constituency candidate. We have a clear manifesto commitment and will press the case for reform.
	The Bill delivers a lasting settlement that will settle the constitutional argument in Wales for a generation or more. Instead of constantly revising and returning to the issue of its powers and electoral arrangements, the Assembly will now be able to focus on policy development and delivery, in education, health and all the other devolved fields. The constant demand "More powers" will be redundant: they will be on the statute book when the Bill receives Royal Assent, ready for implementation after a successful referendum. Instead of powers, the real question will be: are the Welsh Assembly Government delivering or not? What are the future policies necessary to build a world-class Wales? Political arguments over policies will replace political arguments over powers, so that Welsh political culture gains full maturity.

Dominic Grieve: The possibility of people both standing for a seat and being elected from the list when they were defeated was inherent in the system set up in 1998, and is an inevitable consequence of such a system of proportional representation. Indeed, it exists in other parts of the United Kingdom, so on what basis has the Secretary of State suddenly decided that Wales should not have that system, which is common throughout the world, even if it has come in for criticism? Why has he decided that Wales uniquely should not have it, and why has he done so in a manner of which the Electoral Commission has been very critical?

Peter Hain: The hon. Gentleman has only just wandered into the debate and his point is rather wandering as well. All we are saying is: the list system will remain and people can make a choice. They can decide—as Labour Members are doing. As I shall explain later, half a dozen Labour Members will be faced with a tough choice. They face swings against them of less than 3 per cent. Going by the general election performance last year, their seats will be vulnerable in the next Assembly election. They have to face that choice; they do not have the lifebelt of being able to stand in the list, any more than candidates of any other party.

Peter Hain: No, but I studied what has happened in Mexico and Thailand, and in Canada, in New Brunswick, among other provinces, and what is being studied in New Zealand. I will quote alternative evidence later in my speech, including from a much more respected academic commentator on Wales than those who have been quoted.

Peter Hain: Since I am in a charitable mood, of course I give way.

Cheryl Gillan: On this occasion, there could be a holy alliance between hon. Members, because certainly some people have to think straight. The Secretary of State seems to be taking advice from people throughout the international arena, but I do not understand why he ignored the advice of the First Minister, Rhodri Morgan, who when giving evidence thought that the problems could be dealt with by using a protocol along Scottish lines. Why has the Secretary of State ignored the First Minister? Can we expect these electoral changes to be introduced in Scotland shortly?

Peter Hain: I do not know where the hon. Lady has done her research, but the First Minister is fully signed up to this policy. At a special Welsh Labour conference on 11 September 2004, he voted for and backed the manifesto on which we stood in May last year that unanimously endorsed the policy. He is enthusiastically backing the policy and she should not take his name in vain in that way.
	Although the proposals in the Bill were in Labour's manifesto for an historic third term, it is right to acknowledge the part that people from all parties have played in the debate on the future powers and electoral arrangements of the Assembly. Those people include Lord Richard of Ammanford and the members of his commission who submitted a detailed report to the Welsh Assembly Government in 2004. I pay tribute to Lord Richard for the strength of his advocacy. He remains a tribune for Welsh reform, and we look forward to his contributions when the Bill reaches the House of Lords.
	Members of the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis), have provided expert analysis to inform the debate about the Bill, as have members of the Assembly committee, chaired by the Presiding Officer, Lord Elis-Thomas.
	The vast majority of clauses in this 165-clause Bill should have cross-party support. Ninety-three clauses re-enact, with only minor modifications, those from the 1998 Act. For example, clauses 145 to 147 on Welsh public records, which applied just to the Assembly as a corporate body under the old Act, have been modified to apply to the Welsh Assembly Government and the Assembly Commission separately.
	A further 47 entirely new clauses have been incorporated into the Bill to establish a proper legislature to hold the Executive to account—something that all parties support. Many of those provisions draw directly from existing statutes, which provide a successful model for what we are trying to achieve in Wales. For example, the provisions establishing the Assembly Commission are drawn almost word for word from the provisions in the Scotland Act 1998, which set up the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body. I hope that those clauses, too, will prove uncontentious, so that the vast majority of clauses—at least 140 of the 165 clauses—will have cross-party support. Just 24 clauses concern extra powers—the real meat of the Bill—and one clause from the 1998 Act has been amended so as to ban candidates from simultaneously standing in both a constituency and for a region, whether as a list candidate or as an individual.
	The Bill will set up the Welsh Assembly Government as an entity in its own right, rather than as an off-shoot of the National Assembly, as it is now. In future, it will be much clearer who is responsible for taking decisions and who should be accountable for them. Instead of an Assembly modelled on old local government lines, there will be a new Westminster-type structure with a clear distinction between the Welsh Assembly Government and the Assembly acting as a proper legislature, holding Ministers to account. This change has support from all parties in the Assembly and will make for better government and better public understanding of the differences between the responsibilities of Ministers on the one hand, and the role of Opposition parties and Back Benchers of all parties on the other.
	Secondly, the Bill will give the Assembly enhanced powers to take decisions affecting the people of Wales in areas approved by Parliament on a case-by-case basis.

Dominic Grieve: I want to understand a little more about the pre-legislative scrutiny. If I understand the Secretary of State's position, the scrutiny will be on not the details of the legislation, but the principles of the area that will be delegated for the Assembly to legislate on. Does that not require a considerable abdication of the responsibility of Members of this House without the people of Wales endorsing that and saying that they would prefer the Assembly to do something, rather than hon. Members? How can the Secretary of State justify such a major constitutional shift without going to the people of Wales and asking them to endorse it by referendum?

Peter Hain: No. I am sorry, but I need to make progress and have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
	If Parliament agrees that enhanced powers on a particular matter should be conferred on the Assembly, and once the Order in Council has been made, the Assembly can deliver new made-in-Wales legislation in relation to that matter. The new laws will be called Assembly measures, and the Assembly's arrangements for scrutinising and approving measures will closely follow the procedures used in this House for considering primary legislation. Although the detail will be a matter for the Assembly itself to determine, the Bill requires that the Assembly provides for three stages of consideration on the principle, detail and the final text of proposed measures, which are analogous to Second Reading, Committee and Third Reading. That reflects an important principle underlying the Order-in-Council procedure. The proposed powers to be conferred would be bestowed by Parliament not on individual Ministers—not on the Executive—but on an elected legislature, with its own rigorous procedures for scrutiny both of the Executive and of legislative measures.
	I have discussed this matter with the Chairs of both the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the Constitution Committee of the House of Lords. They agree that there is an important distinction to be made between powers conferred on an elected legislature and those delegated to a Secretary of State. There should therefore not be the same concerns expressed over powers conferred on an elected, accountable law-making body such as the Assembly, with its own scrutiny processes, as have been expressed over powers delegated to Ministers.
	The Government believe that this new procedure will be of immense benefit to the Assembly Government in enabling them to carry out their functions in the devolved fields of responsibilities. Of the bids for legislation that the Assembly has made over the past six years, the vast majority have been on matters that have excited little or no parliamentary controversy, such as the Public Services Ombudsman (Wales) Bill and the Public Audit (Wales) Bill, and all but two of them could have been accommodated under the new streamlined process provided for in this Bill. The exceptions are the demands for the Assembly to have the power to ban hunting and to have control over shop opening times. An additional one may be the request for St. David's day to be a bank holiday. Those could not be delivered under the Order-in-Council process, as they lie outside the existing devolved settlement.
	The procedure will give the Assembly much wider flexibility and discretion, while preserving the key pillar of the existing devolution settlement: it is Parliament that will determine the new powers that the Assembly will acquire. Parliament, as ever, remains sovereign. The procedure will also relieve pressures on parliamentary business managers from Assembly bids for Bills.
	As we have heard, the Opposition suggest that the new Order-in-Council procedure might be used to give the Assembly primary powers through the back door. That is simply not the case, as clause 94 makes abundantly clear. If the Assembly ever attempted to acquire such powers by the back door, I as Secretary of State would block it, so would this House and so would the Lords. It is inconceivable because there is a triple lock to prevent it. Parliament remains in charge.
	The additional powers offering a more streamlined route for Assembly decision making fall within the settlement endorsed in the 1997 referendum. However, it may prove at some time that even they are still insufficient to address the needs of the people of Wales. The Bill therefore makes provision to confer full primary powers on the Assembly, subject to a referendum. I am proud to be the first Secretary of State for Wales to seek to place primary powers on the statute book. But, as I have explained, it is essential that such a fundamental change to the devolution settlement should first be approved by the people of Wales through a referendum, and it would be hugely damaging to the cause of devolution to move to that stage before there was widespread agreement in Wales. For that reason, the Bill includes a number of safeguards to ensure that there is no premature move towards primary powers.
	First, the Bill ensures that a referendum would be triggered only if supported by two thirds of all Assembly Members. Secondly, the Bill places a responsibility on the Secretary of State to ensure that a referendum could take place only after adequate public consultation. Finally, a referendum order would require the approval of both Houses of Parliament by affirmative motion and two thirds of all Assembly Members before it could proceed. Taken together, these safeguards will ensure that a strong, multi-party consensus must exist before a referendum can be called—something that is not likely to happen in the near future.
	These provisions are vital to settle the constitutional debate in Wales. By legislating for primary powers now, we avoid the need for a further Government of Wales Bill. Instead of the constant distraction of endless constitutional argument, this Bill puts primary powers on the statute book awaiting the verdict of the electorate. Instead of being the domain of political and constitutional anoraks, the question of the Assembly's powers will be in the hands of the Welsh people. Instead of sniping from the sidelines, proponents of primary powers will have to win the argument.
	Those leading the calls for an early referendum are doing a disservice to the cause of devolution in Wales. To call a referendum on primary powers now, when we know that it would fail, would not only destroy the chance of enhancing the Assembly's powers, but do terrible damage to devolution itself. Just look at the aftermath of the no vote in 1979, when the prospect of devolution was taken off the agenda for nearly twenty years—a generation. I know that some will say that certain opinion polls show a majority in favour of a Scottish-style Parliament, but I caution them to remember the opinion polls prior to the referendum in 1997, which predicted an overwhelming victory for the yes campaign. The votes did not reflect the headlines in the end, and I believe that the same would be true today.
	Let me now deal with our proposals to reform the electoral system for the Assembly. In 1998, the Labour Government established the additional member system for elections to the Assembly. Broadly speaking, that electoral system has been a success: it has preserved the strong tradition of individual constituency representation that is fundamental to our democracy while delivering a system of fair votes that has improved democratic accountability in Wales. It has even thrown a life belt to the Welsh Conservative party, although that is not something that I would celebrate. However, although it has worked well in ensuring fair representation in the Assembly, I, as one of the Ministers who took the Bill through the Commons, never imagined the abuses that have resulted.
	The system as it has operated in Wales has a major weakness. A widespread practice since the Assembly was established has been that candidates who are rejected by a particular constituency have secured back-door election as Assembly Members through the regional list and so have been able to claim to represent the constituency that rejected them. In Clwyd, West in 2003, three of the four defeated candidates were subsequently elected to the Assembly through the regional list. That practice clouds political accountability and denies the voters their right to reject a particular candidate at the ballot box. The change made by the Bill—requiring candidates to choose whether to stand for a constituency or a regional list—will put the voters in charge.

Elfyn Llwyd: Surely the right hon. Gentleman understands that Helen Mary Jones is saying that she is Llanelli-based? She lives there—she does not say that she is the Member for Llanelli. If that were the case, he would have ground for complaint. Perhaps more importantly, the right hon. Gentleman says that the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) may be addressed by standing orders in the National Assembly. Will he oversee those orders, or will he allow the Assembly to deal with them itself?

Peter Hain: They will be drawn up by the National Assembly itself. In his party's interests, may I discourage the hon. Gentleman from making such interventions, as he has provoked me to produce even more evidence? I have it on good authority from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan) that Helen Mary Jones lives in his constituency and is one of his constituents. We have a leaked memorandum—[Interruption.] I can see Plaid Cymru Members writhing—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I apologise for interrupting the right hon. Gentleman, but we must not have continual sedentary interventions. That applies across the House. There is a long list of speakers who wish to speak in the debate, and they may be sacrificing their chances of being called.

Peter Hain: My hon. Friend may wish to know that, yet again, a member of Plaid Cymru has been caught red- handed, and advocates the targeting of Assembly office budgets in target seats. She says that her party's list Members will only do case work where it will benefit Plaid Cymru in those seats and will only attend civic and other events in the constituency if they think that there are votes in it. What a terrible advertisement for a Plaid Cymru Assembly Member.
	The comments and evidence that I have cited demonstrate that the claim that the measure is partisan is entirely without foundation. I shall explain why. I remind the House that there are six Labour Assembly Members, including three Ministers, who would be defeated by a swing of 3 per cent. against them—a very small swing. They will no longer have the safety net of the regional list. This reform will affect Labour candidates, just as it applies to candidates of other parties. Candidates must make their choice, then the voters will make theirs.
	The Bill marks an important step forward for the Assembly and an important step forward for Wales. I therefore hope that it will command broad cross-party support as it goes through both Houses. We all have our different views on which party should be in power in Cardiff bay, but we should all be able to unite to ensure that the Assembly works effectively as a democratically elected body for the good of Wales. There should be a cross-party consensus on putting Wales first.
	I was encouraged when the new Leader of the Opposition said that he wanted to make a break from past Tory opposition to devolution and instead make it work for the people of Wales. He told The Western Mail that the Tories would no longer pursue the option of a referendum to abolish the Assembly. I had hoped, therefore, that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham would adopt a similarly constructive approach to devolution and abandon the anti-Welsh and anti-Assembly stance of her predecessor as shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Leominster (Bill Wiggin). However, it is hard to see how the new consensus approach to Wales signalled by the Leader of the Opposition fits with the reasoned amendment tabled in his name and that of the hon. Lady, which seeks to block even a modest extension of powers to the Assembly by a ridiculous and ritualistic demand for a referendum.
	The idea that the people of Wales would be galvanised by a referendum on the Assembly being authorised to legislate via parliamentary Orders in Council in future, rather than by parliamentary Bills as now, is absurd. What on earth would the question be? Even more to the point, what would the turnout be? The amendment calls for a referendum on enhanced legislative powers for the Assembly. Perhaps she could tell the House how she would campaign in such a referendum—for or against? Does she agree with Nick Bourne, her party's leader in the Assembly, who said that
	"all parties agree the present situation is not sustainable in the long term"?
	If the hon. Lady continues to pursue her opposition to even these modest additional powers for Wales, she will have squandered an historic opportunity to redefine the position of the Conservative party in Wales. Instead of consigning to the past the Tories' reputation as an anti-devolution party, she will have cemented it. A referendum is called for when the 1997 settlement is fundamentally changed, as the Bill proposes with regard to primary powers. There is no case at all for a referendum that merely adapts the current settlement, with Parliament remaining in charge, as has been the case so far. What she is recommending is a recipe for obstruction and paralysis. It is nothing more than another Tory attempt to thwart the development of the Assembly.
	The Bill represents a crucial test for the Welsh Conservatives and they have already failed it. It is in the national interest of Wales for all parties to bury the arguments of the past and accept that the Assembly is here to stay, and to concentrate instead on making devolution work better. Instead, the Tories have stuck by their rejectionist policies of the past. So much for the Leader of the Opposition's new consensus approach to policy-making. It clearly excludes Wales.
	Wales will have to move on without the Tories, and today we begin to do that, in a new dawn for devolution like that famous one in September 1997. Wales has made great progress over the past eight years. We now have the opportunity to settle for a long time the constitutional status of Wales, first by devolving further powers to the Assembly, and secondly the prospect of primary powers at some time in the future, if the people of Wales vote for that option in a referendum. By equipping the Assembly to face the challenges of the 21st century, we will help to achieve our objective of a Wales that is world-class, both economically competitive and with high quality public services. For the good of the people of Wales, I call on all parties in the House to support the Bill.

Cheryl Gillan: The hon. Gentleman's extraordinary intervention is premature. If he contains his enthusiasm, I will set out my party's position.
	I am grateful to the Secretary of State for setting out the Bill's context and main provisions. The legislation is highly significant for not only the future governance of Wales, but the constitutional position of the United Kingdom as a whole. Under my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the Conservative party is a party of localism and devolution. On his first visit to Wales as Leader of the Opposition just before Christmas, my right hon. Friend made it clear that devolution and the National Assembly are now established features of the Welsh political landscape. I hope that the Secretary of State will resist the temptation to revisit past battles over devolution and misrepresent our position. A future Conservative Government will seek a constructive relationship with the Assembly, whichever party or parties form the Welsh Assembly Government. We do not, however, believe that the Assembly discharges its functions in every respect either effectively or efficiently, which is something that we will seek to remedy.

Cheryl Gillan: I would have expected the hon. Gentleman to look forwards rather than backwards, because he will run for office in his party at some stage. If he does not run for office, perhaps he will run to become president of the Liberal Democrats. [Interruption.] Conservatives are always ahead of the game. I shall keep looking forwards and seek not to be drawn into old arguments.
	The debate is about the future structure and powers of the Assembly to allow it to perform what all hon. Members agree is its primary function—delivering a better quality of life for people in Wales. We can also agree on some of the changes that will result from the Bill, if it becomes law. I have made it clear to the Secretary of State in private meetings outside this House and in my interventions today that the Opposition believe that the Bill contains some good elements as well as some unacceptable elements.
	First, let me set out the areas where we are supportive of the Bill. The decision formally to separate the executive and legislative arms of the National Assembly is long overdue. There is almost unanimous agreement that the existing corporate Assembly structure has created confusion and misunderstanding as to where real power and decision making lie. That view was endorsed by the Richard commission, the Government's own White Paper in June, and most recently by the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs. From the outset, the Assembly has evolved beyond the limits of the Government of Wales Act 1998 so that there is now a much clearer separation between the Assembly Government and other Assembly Members. That should be recognised.
	In February 2002, the Assembly agreed unanimously on as clear as possible a separation between the work of its executive and legislative arms. In response to Richard, it called for legislation to bring about a formal separation. We broadly believe that the proposals in part 2 are a step in the right direction, but we hope to look at the detail of their implementation in Committee. According to the Secretary of State's programme motion, he intends to allow three days on the Floor of the House for the Committee stage and two days on Report and Third Reading. We will support that.
	If that were all that the Bill set out to do, we would have no hesitation in supporting it on Second Reading, but regrettably that is not the case. For the reasons set out in our much-criticised reasoned amendment, I invite right hon. and hon. Members to support our position by joining us in the Lobby tonight.

Wayne David: So that we have absolute clarity on the hon. Lady's exact position, will she say whether she agrees with the hon. Members for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones), and for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) that health service powers should be taken from the Assembly and brought back to Westminster?

Cheryl Gillan: Before you rule the Secretary of State out of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I suggest that his real problem is that there are three Welsh Conservative Members of Parliament, as well as Conservative Members in the Assembly. If Labour Assembly Members had the same reputation for hard work as our Conservative MPs and AMs, they would do extremely well.
	The Bill suffers from two fatal flaws. First, there is a lack of any proper consultation with the people of Wales through a referendum on the implications of the changes in part 3. Our argument is not that the Assembly should not gain additional powers but that, consistent with our approach to devolution, we need to give the people of Wales their say. We need to give them the opportunity to understand the proposals in the Bill and to express their views on what they want. However, although the Government are prepared to concede a referendum, at some point in the future, on the primary law-making powers set out in part 4, they do not provide for one on the new legislative procedures in part 3. That is inconsistent and wrong, and we will seek to persuade the Secretary of State to provide for an earlier referendum on the proposals for the two-stage process. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) says that I should not waste too much time doing that. In the spirit of consensus, however, I am going to try to make the Secretary of State see sense. He has himself described the procedures in part 3 as a mechanism to "streamline" or "fast-track" Welsh legislation. In fact, they represent a fundamental change to the 1998 settlement, not least evidenced by the extent of the repeals in the last schedule to the Bill.
	The Government are proposing, without asking the people of Wales, to substitute the detailed scrutiny that Parliament gives to Welsh primary legislation with a procedure by which legislative competence is transferred to the Assembly through unamendable Orders in Council following a debate for one and a half hours. That procedure risks disfranchising Welsh Members of Parliament, who will no longer be able to carry out the job of work for which their constituents send them here, and at the same time it will disfranchise the Welsh electors who returned Members to this House in the expectation that they would represent their interests by properly scrutinising legislation—a function that will be diminished if the Bill is passed in its present form. It also risks placing the Assembly and Parliament on a clear constitutional collision course.
	No convincing answers have so far been given to legitimate concerns over what would happen if Westminster rejects an application by the Assembly to legislate in a certain area or what would happen if the Secretary of State uses his pro-consular powers to block an application. If the Government envisage that the role of Parliament is simply to rubber-stamp applications, why involve us at all? Why should we go through that interim process and not go straight for full legislative powers? It is little wonder that Lord Richard concluded that
	"There is very considerable lack of clarity in the way in which this interim stage would be managed and effected."
	The Secretary of State has said that the interim stage would be a test of the robustness of the devolution settlement. The people of Wales and this Parliament deserve better than that.
	We are entitled to ask where the demand for the proposed procedure has come from. The Secretary of State says that it will mean that Wales will no longer have to jostle each year to get legislation into the Queen's Speech. If that is so, it would be useful for the House to know precisely how many requests for pressing pieces of legislation have been made by the Assembly that the Government have turned down.

Peter Hain: I am happy to say to the hon. Lady, as she has asked me, that there is a number of outstanding bids for legislation that the Assembly would have liked to have got on to the statute book. Actually, we have done quite well; we have two extra Bills this year, besides this one. She has invited me to clarify a point that is likely to arise in future. As I explained in some detail, there is a process of pre-scrutiny in which every Member of the House—not just Welsh Members—can take part. Such matters will not be rushed through in an hour and a half debate. There will be proper pre-scrutiny during which orders can be amended appropriately.

Ian Lucas: I thank the hon. Lady, and welcome her to her post.
	The people of Wales did have a vote, in May 2005, when they returned 29 Labour Members of Parliament in Wales. In the manifesto on which we all stood, we made clear that we would present proposals for the Assembly to be given enhanced legislative powers. There have been occasions on which I have been less than enthusiastic about more powers for the Assembly, but that was the manifesto on which I stood. Does the hon. Lady believe that that carries any weight at all?

Huw Irranca-Davies: I have already welcomed the hon. Lady to Wales and to our debate. Does she agree that one of the great successes of the last couple of years is the quality and extent of pre-legislative scrutiny applying to Wales? She is new to her post, but if she does agree, does she not consider such scrutiny to be a good model to apply in this instance?

Cheryl Gillan: It may have been in the Welsh manifesto, but it was not in the Scottish and London Assembly manifestos.
	The Electoral Reform Society has spoken out about its profound doubts on this change, saying:
	"There is no evidence at all to back up this proposal and therefore we come to the conclusion that we do not think that the case for change has been made".
	The Commission also made the point that such a change needed to be considered in a UK rather than just a Welsh context. Perhaps the Secretary of State could tell the House when he expects his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland to adopt the same procedures for elections to the Scottish Parliament. Why did such changes not form part of the Scottish Parliament (Constituencies) Act 2004?

Peter Hain: Since the hon. Lady has raised the issue, I shall tell her that the measure appeared in the UK manifesto. A more extensive description appeared in the Welsh manifesto, but the specific commitment appeared in Labour's UK manifesto, which was fought on by every candidate throughout the UK.

Cheryl Gillan: Does that mean that the Government will apply the measure to Scotland, in which case why did it not form part of the Labour party's representation to the Arbuthnot commission? If it is a principle, which the Secretary of State has said it is, it should apply right across the UK.
	The truth is that this is a spiteful and anti-democratic measure that should have no place in a Government of Wales Bill and may not even survive a challenge under Human Rights legislation. In December, the Secretary of State boldly asserted that, in his view, the Bill would settle the constitutional question in Wales. In his own words:
	"What I hope this will do is settle for a generation—if not more—the whole constitutional obsession we have in Wales about the powers and status of the Assembly".
	He knows that the Bill as drafted will do no such thing. Rather than settle the constitutional question, it simply leaves it wide open.
	The Bill offers little prospect of long-term constitutional stability. It proposes a hybrid system of enhanced legislative powers that weakens Parliament and the role of Welsh MPs, while fundamentally changing the 1998 devolution settlement without giving the people of Wales a vote or a voice. Further, it seeks to rig the electoral system to the partisan advantage of the Labour Party.
	If the Government thought that the time has come to make further devolution to Wales, the honest way of going about it would be to consult the people of Wales now, through a referendum, and not wait until some intermediate point along the path, by which time important changes will have been introduced under the guise of this Bill. The Secretary of State had the opportunity to improve the operations of the Assembly simply by separating the Assembly Government from the Assembly Members. Instead, I am afraid that he has chosen to pursue his political interests at the same time, jeopardising the legislation and compromising the people of Wales by adding provisions for partisan, party purposes. I am sorry that he has made that choice.
	We have had no choice but to table a reasoned amendment, and I ask the House to support it in the Lobby tonight. I will not vote against Second Reading if a vote is called because there are elements of the Bill that we Conservatives support, but because the Secretary of State has chosen to include partisan, party proposals, I had no choice but to table a reasoned amendment and to include it in the Order Paper. I ask my hon. Friends to vote with me on it.

Lembit �pik: I welcome the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) to her new Front-Bench role on Welsh matters. The early indications are that she will, indeed, be truly inclusive and take a positive approach. That will certainly endear her to her three Conservative Members from Wales.
	I also pay tribute to Merlyn Rees, who made a tremendous contribution to Northern Ireland affairshe will be considerably missed in the other place, where he was active until Decemberand to Tony Banks, with whom I had considerable interactions, particularly on the vexatious issue of fox hunting. Irrespective of whether I agreed with him, I think that the House can agree that he made a difference and left an indelible mark on parliamentary matters, and to that extent, British politics will be worse off without him.
	I apologise to the House on account of the fact that, on this occasion, I may have to be a little rude and leave at about four minutes to 6, as I am chairing an important meeting concerning the local difficulties facing my party. Although I pay tribute, as leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats, to the loyalty of my hon. Friends the Members for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams), for Cardiff, Central (Jenny Willott) and for Ceredigion (Mark Williams), I recognise that my absence may give them the opportunity to call for my resignation. I intend to fight on and consider my position to be tenable.
	The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham suggested that I was standing for the presidency of my party. I can tell her that no vacancy currently exists for the presidency. However, if called upon to serve humanity in that way, I may allow my name to go forward. I thank the hon. Lady for her offer of support.
	As is the fashion at the moment among young Opposition MPs, it is necessary to pay tribute to the Government. Labour deserve some credit for grasping the nettle in 1998, and kick-starting the devolution process in 1997. The Bill that the Government presented then was a cautious one; it created the Welsh Assembly, but it kept the Assembly's powers firmly in check. In effect, Westminster still ran a large part of the show. The Government now have a mandate to give Wales the deal that it deservesan Assembly with primary powers.
	Polls suggest that the Welsh public support such a move, and all but one of the major parties seem wholly to support moves toward primary powers. The Richard commission set out a clear path for a proper devolution settlement. Having surveyed all the issues in unique detail, Lord Richard and his colleagues concluded that the best way forward for Wales was, first, to create an 80-Member Assembly, with primary law-making powers, elected by a single-transferable-vote system.

Lembit �pik: The hon. Gentleman is right, but in many ways that is a tactical matter. The way in which the Assembly exercises those powers is a strategic question. He and I and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire all have issues about health and other provision across the border, but it is probably more appropriate for us to discuss those specific matters in a debate other than one that deals with these weighty constitutional matters, although the hon. Gentleman may want to discuss that issue in more detail in his own contribution.
	The Richard commission also said that law-making powers would be more effectively dispatched by an 80-Member Assembly. That is the model that Welsh Liberal Democrats want to see put in place. Not only would it create a powerful and professional Welsh senate and a proportional political body with the responsibilities and capacity to move Wales forward, but it would also resolve the issues that the Secretary of State for Wales was trying to grapple with in terms of the frictions that he observes between list Members and constituency Members of the Assembly.
	Unfortunately, the Bill comes nowhere near what Lord Richard advocated and what the Welsh Liberal Democrats and, in my judgment, a very large proportion of the people of Wales would like. In its current form, the Bill is flawed, patronising and limited. Its main problem is that it concentrates great power in the figure of the Secretary of State for Wales and, in doing so, could thrust the devolution process into complete limbo for decades. I give considerable praise to the current Secretary of State, who I believe is genuinely committed to devolution, but there is no guarantee that his successors will share his enthusiasm. In fact, he himself highlighted a possible risk whereby a Secretary of State for Wales might decide to stamp on the requests of the Assembly and therefore thwart devolution.

Dominic Grieve: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. He may agree that it is not a question of whether the Secretary of State decides to stamp on the Assembly. The fact that he has these draconian Executive powers places the Assembly under his administrative tutelage. That is the reality of the arrangement that is being sold to the Welsh people as if the Assembly were getting a proper legislative function, which it is not.

Nigel Evans: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the current settlement was endorsed by the people of Wales in a referendum and that we are now looking to give greater powers to the Welsh Assembly? Irrespective of whether we move to primary powers for which there would be a referendum, does he not agree that the people of Wales must be trusted? They voted once for what we have now and they must be allowed to vote again for a change in the settlement.

Lembit �pik: Let us move on to that point. We should remember that the Welsh Affairs Committee was unequivocal in saying that
	the Secretary of State's powers should be limited to refusing Orders in Council on the basis of procedure, and not on the merits of the policy aspiration.
	The Committee did not ask for a referendum. Although the hon. Lady is perfectly entitled to call for a referendum, that is a matter of judgment, and I do not think that it would be appropriate to hold such a referendum.
	It is the same story with the Governmentthis is where I respond to the hon. Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans). Lord Richard called the Bill a tortuous route towards primary powers. We think that part of that tortuous route is putting a referendum between us and equivalence with Scotland. Hon. Members who feel that they cannot trust the Welsh Assembly, or trust the Welsh people to elect a competent Assembly, might want to support a referendum, but those of us who think that devolution means exactly that believe that the House has the authority and the duty to give the Welsh Assembly responsibilities comparable to those in Scotland.

Paul Murphy: I join in the comments made by Members of the House about Tony Banks and particularly, from a Welsh point of view, about Merlyn Rees. He was a Cilfynydd boy, and a distinguished Home Secretary and Northern Ireland Secretary. We will miss them both.
	I also warmly welcome the new shadow Secretary of State for Wales to her post. I know that Wales has a special place in her heart and we wish her well in her new job. I particularly thank my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and the First Minister for the enormous amount of work that they have put into the Bill and the arrangements before Parliament over the past months and years. The result of those efforts will be seen in the weeks ahead.
	In 1979, my constituency of Torfaen voted overwhelmingly against devolution, and I was one of those who voted against. That was the case among most of the valley constituencies in south Wales and most of Wales itself. Some 20 years later, my constituency continued to vote against devolution, but it did so with the tiniest of majorities. I am unsure what it would do today were there a referendum on the issue, but I believe that it would probably vote in favour. There are two reasons for that.
	The first, inevitably, is that the difference between 1979 and 1997 was nearly two decades of Conservative Government. In a country such as Wales, which overwhelmingly votes Labour, people felt that they needed the change. The second reason, which has not been touched on tremendously this evening but I am sure will be in the debates to follow, is that devolution is not about high constitutional principles but about how services are delivered to the people whom we represent.
	That is the basis of devolution: do people get better health services, schools, planning or local government? It is not only about whether services improve in quality but about whether government is accessible and more accountable to people. To a large extent, accessibility is the one area that my constituents would regard as having changed during all those years.
	I am not saying for one second that improvements are not necessary in service delivery in Walesof course they are, as in the rest of the United Kingdom. However, people now understand that the Assembly exists to deliver the services so that people's lives can be improved. Does the Bill change that in any way? That is the question that we must consider on Second Reading and in Committee. The change in relation to the separation of powers is very important because the Assembly's corporate status simply has not worked and needs to be changed.
	I was confused by the Conservative party's reasoned amendment. I am in favour of such amendments when they mean something, but this one means that the Opposition are inviting this House to turn down completely the Second Reading of the Bill. There is ample opportunity in Committee, on Report and in the other place to deal with the important issues. To reject the entire Bill on such a basis is wrong and is, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, bizarre.
	The changes that will result from the Orders in Council provision are necessary. They are not especially dramatic and they will improve service delivery. In the past, including when I was Secretary of State, we transferred powers to the Assembly on several occasions. Fire services are an obvious example: they come under local government in England and should in Wales as well. There are other examples, including animal welfare, in which services or functions were devolved to the Assembly because it made sense so to do. The Order in Council procedure enhancing the legislative competence of the Assembly will make sense where the Assembly has responsibility.
	I am a little doubtfulI agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), the Father of the Houseabout the way in which Parliament will deal with scrutiny in that Order in Council process. I am not convinced that we have got that right yet. As Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, my right hon. Friend knows that the Order in Council provision, which is used to legislate while there is direct rule for Northern Ireland, does not allow for amendments to be made to legislation and that there is a limit of one and a half hours for debate. I know that putting on the face of the Bill improvements to our method of scrutiny would be a problem, but Parliament and the Government ought to consider in more detail how the process could be improved. Pre-legislative scrutiny, working with the Assembly Committees and extending the time for debate on Orders in Council will all be necessary, of course, but I hope that my right hon. Friend will also take on board the suggestions that I am sure will be made in Committee.
	I do not think that a referendum is needed on the Orders in Council provision, and I certainly do not believe that one is needed on whether to allow dual candidacy. A referendum will be needed if primary powers are to be given to the Welsh Assembly, because that would fundamentally change the settlement on which we agreed back in 1997.
	There might be a case in years to come for holding another referendum, on the way in which we elect Members to the National Assembly for Wales. The present system is confusing to our electors, and if an electoral system confuses the electors, it is not a good electoral system. I would prefer to have two-Member constituencies using an alternative vote system. That is what I argued for in the mid-1990s, but it did not happen. I doubt that it would be acceptable now, but it remains my preference. I would like to see a first-past-the-post system, but I do not think that that is likely to happen because it would fundamentally change the system on which people voted. If we want fundamentally to change the electoral system, there is a case for giving people the right to vote on that, because that would be meaningful.
	The change in respect of dual candidacy is necessary. I do not think for one second that it would give any party an advantage. Different parties might have different rules on who should stand for what, but in terms of who is eventually elected, it will make no difference. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, six of our Labour colleagues in the Assembly could face defeat on the smallest of swings, but will not have the safeguard of standing for the top-up list.

Ian Lucas: For the hon. Gentleman's information, Wrexham and Alyn and Deeside are not in the objective 1 area and do not receive grant aid, in contrast with areas of Shropshire that receive grant aid under EU regulations.

Hywel Francis: I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on her new appointment. As chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I look forward to working with her. I pay tribute too to two great parliamentariansMerlyn Rees, a true son of Cilfynydd, and Tony Banks.
	As chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, I wish to make a contribution to this important debate on the future government of Wales. On a personal note, I am encouraged by the constructive proposals in the Bill that have the capacity, I believe, to strengthen democracy, policy development and accountability within Wales. As someone who has actively supported democratic devolution for more than three decades in Wales, I am aware of the opportunities and also of some of the dangers swirling around the Bill. Most critically, I am aware of the need for a broad consensus within Wales to support the principles that underpin the proposals.
	The devolution campaign in 197879 paid little real attention to the need for such a consensus; least of all, sad to say, within our own governing party. Even in 1997, a much more propitious time, we must acknowledge, and with barely an organised opposition, the referendum result was perilously close.
	I am reminded of the prophetic words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who has made an important contribution to tonight's debate, when he was Secretary of State for Wales. He rightly characterised devolution as part of the long historic progress of Welsh and British democracy via the chartist and suffragette movements. Following the 1997 referendum vote, it was he who said, I believe borrowing from the late John Smith, that Welsh devolution was a settled question. It was settled in the sense of no going back because the Welsh people had taken a vital democratic step forward through a referendum. He cautioned that further legitimate progress towards new powers could be made only with a further referendum sometime in the future.
	My Committee considered the proposals contained within the White Paper and made a series of helpful recommendations that I believe will improve the proposed legislation. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said previously that he would be responding in detail to my Committee's recommendations. I look forward to that response and I hope that he will be forthcoming in taking on board all of our recommendations.
	The Government produced a White Paper rather than a draft Bill. That meant that there was insufficient detail for my Committee to consider when it looked at the Government's proposals, but it is an important piece of constitutional legislation for Wales and the Bill should have been submitted for proper pre-legislative scrutiny. We made that point in our report, because such scrutiny would have enabled us as parliamentarians and the wider public to assess properly the Government's intentions. It is regrettable that we could not do so.
	I welcome the fact that the Government have introduced a free-standing Bill, rather than a Bill to amend the Government of Wales Act 1998. However, it represents only part of the solution. If there is to be absolute clarity about what powers rest with Parliament and what powers lie with the Welsh Assembly Government we need a Welsh statute book. Without one, an understanding of where the finer points of authority lie may remain beyond our grasp, so we made a recommendation that one should be established.
	Our report welcomes the separation of the legislature and the Executive. The existing arrangements have bred confusion about the roles of the Welsh Assembly Government and the National Assembly. A formal separation of the two will make it clear to the people of Wales that the Welsh Assembly Government are responsible for policy direction in Wales while the National Assembly is responsible for holding the Government to account.
	We also recommended that the Bill use the term Welsh Executive rather than Welsh Assembly Government. The current terminology reflects the maximum separation possible under the 1998 Act. Now that we have a new Bill, we no longer need the connection that the word Assembly in Welsh Assembly Government implies. The term Welsh Executive removes any connection or confusion with the National Assembly, and reinforces the formal separation between the Executive and the legislature in Cardiff. For that reason, we recommended that Welsh Executive replace Welsh Assembly Government in the Bill.
	The meat of the Bill consists of the Government's proposals to enhance the powers of the National Assembly through the use of Orders in Council. The Government propose that requests for powers in certain areas be approved by Parliament with secondary legislation rather than primary legislation. That would have the benefit of providing Wales with the tools that it needs to pursue its policy aspirations while at the same time preventing legislation from being caught up in the busy timetable of the Government's legislative programme. I appreciate that not everyone is keen on using delegated legislation to confer powers on the National Assembly, as it is possible that draft orders will not receive adequate parliamentary scrutiny. For that reason, our report recommended that draft orders should be considered not in a Standing Committee but on the Floor of the House for one and a half hours. If there was cross-party consensus that a particular draft Order in Council needed a longer debate, we recommend that it should be referred to the Welsh Grand Committee. Furthermore, proposals for draft orders will be subject to detailed pre-legislative scrutiny. I am pleased that the Secretary of State has suggested that there is a role for the Welsh Affairs Committee in such scrutiny.

Elfyn Llwyd: I add my sincere condolences to the words already uttered regarding Lord Merlyn-Rees and Lord Stratford. I also congratulate the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) on taking over the brief for the Wales Office. However, it is not her golden hour. Like others, I find it strange that a reasoned amendment has been tabled, but she has made her caseunconvincingly, with respect.
	For the most part, the Bill is welcome, but there are parts of it that need strengthening and amendment. If, as has become standard procedure, the Government introduce a raft of amendments before Report, it would undoubtedly ease the process if the same were made available to all in good time, with cogent explanatory notes.
	There is a broad consensus in favour of the separation of the Executive from the legislature. That is to be welcomed. Less welcome is the assertion in the Bill that pursuant to such change, there is a need for change in the National Assembly standing orders and that those standing orders must be made by the Secretary of State for Wales. Why is that so, when the core point is to ensure that the National Assembly is able to take charge of new powers for itself? Given that we have a democratic institution that is up and running, surely the Assembly could be left to look after its own House and its own standing orders. I hope that that will be the case in due course, contrary to some of the suggestions made earlier.
	Before examining specific aspects of the Bill, it is right to point out that the better governance of Wales could have been assured in a bolder, simpler and more transparent way had the Government followed the full proposals of the Richard commission. In that regard the Bill represents a missed opportunity. It is all the more disappointing because the lost opportunity came about because of internal wrangling in new Labour, so we have a Bill that is the progeny of a 13(2)(b) fudge adopted so conveniently by the First Minister. I make that overtly political point because it means that the better governance of Wales is to be put on hold for over a decade at the behest of a few selfish new Labour Back Benchers from Wales. Perhaps the more important point is that we are left with an unnecessarily complex and cumbersome procedure for legislating in the National Assembly. As a member of the Richard commission said, it is a system that will work only if there is an enormous amount of pulling in the same direction between Cardiff and Westminster.
	Before examining the triple lock procedure for getting an Order in Council, let us consider the inordinate delays that already exist in introducing legislation by Order in Council. I shall give the House an example of a measure that has taken more than three years to come about in the National Assembly. It is entirely uncontentious and is entitled the Removal and Disposal of Vehicles (Amendment) (Wales) Regulations 2005. The Minister grins. I had a private discussion with him some time ago, in which I expressed my concern about the delays in the Orders in Council procedure. I said that sometimes it takes between 18 months and two years. The Minister shook his head and said that I had got the timing wrong.The real example that I gave started its journey on 10 April 2002 and finished in November 2005, so I might just have been right in my estimate. That is more than three years.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I make no apologies for my party being in governmentthat is a very good thing. The fact that we moved to devolution at all was because of a consensus that was the direct polar opposite of 18 years of Conservative colonial rule in Wales. The people of Wales rebelled and said, We will move towards devolution, and the Liberals, the Welsh nationalists and others were on board.
	I want to touch on the representation of the business voice in the Bill. Clauses 72 to 75 deal with the partnership council, the local government scheme and the voluntary sector scheme. The clause on local government runs to 21 lines and the clause on the voluntary sector runs to 38 lines. That recognises the importance of those two sectors. Almost like an apology at the end, the clause on business organisations runs to four lines. The clause on local government states:
	The Welsh Ministers must make a scheme (the local government scheme) setting out how they propose . . . to sustain and promote local government in Wales.
	It says that they
	must keep the local government scheme under review, and . . . may from time to time remake or revise it
	and that every year they must publish a reportand so on. That is replicated as regards the voluntary sector, whereby Welsh Ministers must produce an annual report and sustain and promote the interests of voluntary sector organisations.
	All that is absolutely right. However, we are missing a trick if, in my constituency and across the whole of Wales, we fail to recognise the immense economic regeneration, and improvements to people's quality of life, that can be achieved by business interestsmicro-businesses, small and medium-sized enterprises and large companies. When the Bill moves into Committee, the Government should either table an amendment to redress that balance, or accept another amendment that may be tabled, to replicate some of the details in the clauses on the voluntary sector and local government.

Huw Irranca-Davies: I return to the point, and I think that the Bill envisages the situation, that Assembly Members should be equal but different. A local constituency first-past-the-post Assembly Member has a specific constituency interest and a right to describe themselves as local and to campaign on issues specific to that constituency. It is regrettable and it was never envisaged that regional Assembly Members would choose to make use of the system to make political capital rather than to work on behalf of the area. Unfortunately, as we saw in the memo that was circulated, one Assembly Member envisaged where that could easily be done. It can, and I am afraid that the evidence is there for everybody to see.
	Lord Richard talks of how, the morning after, Assembly Members who had been denied the chance of first past the post were suddenly resurrected. That causes immense confusion. It is a Lazarus-like resurrection, except that he had the decency to wait at least three days. Assembly Members who have been rejected outright by their electorate are suddenly back in place. As the Secretary of State said, the question of choosing one or the other is not simply to the advantage of one party. It will also be the case for Labour Members.

Stephen Crabb: Whatever questions people in Wales are currently asking about devolution, I do not believe that the Bill provides the answers. It contains useful measures to enhance the effectiveness of the Assembly's workings, which I welcome, but at its heart lies a very unwelcome political fix. I refer to part 3, which sets out the Order-in-Council procedure for granting further law-making powers to the Assembly.
	By constructing a hugely complex procedure whereby the Assembly can essentially legislate for itself in the fields devolved to it by part 1 of schedule 5, and which requires Parliament to give its consent, the Secretary of State has pulled off the ultimate devolution trick. He can tell his impatient pro-devolution colleagues in the Assembly that he has given them full law-making powers in all but name. He can also tell colleagues who are more cautious about devolutionsome may be present nowthat Parliament is retaining its sovereignty and that part 3 does not constitute a significant extension of current practice. It is a political fix and I do not believe that the British constitution should be bent and shaped by such a fix.
	Apart from the constitutional issues, I am very concerned about the way in which the Order-in-Council procedure would work in practice. It seems to rely heavily on a large measure of good will and shared objectives on the part of the Secretary of State and the Welsh Assembly Government. It is not difficult to envisage circumstances in which the relationship might not be so cordial and the scope for disappointment, confusion and, perhaps, legislative breakdown could be considerable.
	If we are to extend and deepen the devolution settlement, the Order-in-Council mechanism, which emasculates Parliament and bypasses a referendum, is certainly not the way to do it. Without doubt, the Bill develops the settlement in a way to which the people of Wales never assented when they voted by a 1 per cent. majority to establish the Assembly in 1997. It is simply not true that, as the Secretary of State would have us believe, the Government of Wales Act 1998 provided for exactly this kind of arrangement.
	As has already been said today, Lord Richard himself argued that the proposals for Orders in Council had the potential to be a
	concealed grant of almost a direct legislative competence down to Cardiff.
	Professor Rawlings of the London School of Economics has argued that the approach could be described as a
	form of quasi-legislative devolution.
	The claim that the Order-in-Council procedure is nothing more than what was agreed to by the Welsh people in 1997 is a bizarre and misleading interpretation of the Bill. The truth is that it goes significantly beyond what was agreed to following the referendum eight years agowhich is why, if part 3 is to be implemented, it should be implemented only after a new referendum decision.
	The one fundamental driving force for devolution should be the people of Wales, and what they want for their country. If they want to take the devolution settlement further to give the Assembly full law-making powers, let us get on with it by using part 4. If they do not want that, let us not try to bring it about by using a byzantine alternative route that would risk further alienating Welsh people from the body that is supposed to bring decision making closer to them. It is essential for those making policy to move in step with Welsh opinion. Otherwise, they will risk creating an even more remote devolved body that will lack real meaning for the Welsh people.
	It is worth reminding ourselves just how divided the Welsh nation was over the original devolution question in 1997. Wales was split down the middle on whether to create the National Assembly. Eleven of the 22 Welsh local authority areas returned no verdicts, while just 559,000 peoplea mere 25 per cent. of the Welsh electoratevoted in favour. At the time, many of us believed strongly that that was a flimsy basis for the creation of an Assembly that could command popular legitimacy and interest, but we in the Conservative party accepted the fact of devolution, and, as many neutral commentators have said, the Conservative group in the Assembly has perhaps worked harder than anyone else to make the institution work. Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that large chunks of the Welsh electorate are disengaged from devolution.
	At the first Assembly election in 1999, there was a 46 per cent. turnout and just over 1 million people voted. In 2003, only 850,000 votes were cast. There was a 38 per cent. turnout, about the same as the United Kingdom turnout for the 2004 elections to the European Parliament, an institution that is supposed to represent the very paragon of remoteness to the people of this country. That is a dreadful record for such a young institution, which was set up to satisfy some unmet desire for devolution on the part of the Welsh people.

Stephen Crabb: I think my response to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) answers that question as well. The hon. Gentleman will recall from those Committee discussions that I thought that it would be healthy for the Welsh democratic process to allow the significant stream of opinion in the Principality that still has not come round to the idea of devolution, and would rather see it scrapped, to be aired. I do not think we should be afraid of that. I do not believe that it is deeply damaging, or even anti-Welsh, to suggest that a referendum should include such a question, and I remember that two Labour members of the Committee agreed with me.
	Let us be clear about this. I do not oppose further devolution, if the people of Wales choose it. I have no problem with stage 3 devolution as envisaged in part 4. Full devolution following a strong, positive referendum result is essential, however: it cannot be introduced through the back door without an opportunity for the people of Wales to vote. The problem lies in the constitutional trickery in part 3the Order-in-Council procedure.
	The Secretary of State has spoken on a previous occasion of his dislike of referendums and has said that other issues can be bundled into a referendum campaign so that what might have begun as a question about a specific issue becomes a mechanism for disgruntled voters to sound off about their general unhappiness with the Government of the day. That is a fair point. I well understand why he is concerned about how the electorate might behave after nine long years of his cynical Government. I think, though, that he underestimates the sophistication of the Welsh electorate when it comes to thinking about their Assembly. We should have nothing to fear from a referendum. The pace and direction of devolution must be dictated only by the Welsh people.
	As a member of the Select Committee, I want to record my disappointment at the way in which the Government produced the Bill without even waiting for the Committee to publish its report on the White Paper. That makes a mockery of pre-legislative scrutiny. Perhaps I should not be surprised, however. At no point during his appearance before the Committee for the inquiry did the Secretary of State appear to be in listening mode. That was particularly evident when he and the First Minister were asked about the proposals for altering electoral arrangements for constituency and regional list Members. Committee members will recall their double act when they sought, outrageously, to trash the reasonable and considered concerns put by the Electoral Commission and by Dr. Richard Wyn Jones and Dr. Roger Scully of Aberystwyth university, who said that the new arrangements could be seen as serving partisan interests and could therefore undermine confidence and participation in the electoral process. The First Minister laid into them, saying
	I think this is not their finest hour,
	and claiming that their statements were poor and unsupported. The Secretary of State himself then accused the Electoral Commission of being out of touch with political reality. It was all very unsavoury. Those tactics only served to reinforce the impression that deep partisan motivation underlies the changes in the electoral arrangements, and that the Labour party has no desire to achieve any cross-party consensus on the issue.

Dai Havard: Like the hon. Lady, I thought about voting against the Bill tonight, but I dismissed it for the reasons I gave earlier. These matters now have to go into Committee and it has to be proved that what we are told is to happen will take place. The Government recognise that there is work to be done to put proper flesh on the proposals.
	Some of the debate has been the wrong way around, as we have heard. It would have been better to have a draft Bill. If there is to be real pre-legislative scrutiny, this Bill would have benefited. These are my tests, and I was not going to vote against the Bill tonight.

Hywel Williams: To refer back to the hon. Gentleman's constituents on the bus, would they, or the hon. Gentleman himself, have given evidence to Mr. Glyn Mathias at the Electoral Commission, who told the Welsh Affairs Committee that this was not an issue for Mr. German or any of the other candidates in that election as far as it could find out. Does the hon. Gentleman have any superior knowledge?

Cheryl Gillan: My hon. Friend is making an excellent contribution and I can see why his electors return him to the Assembly and to this House. Does he agree that it is ironic that the Government should bring forward proposals to change the legislative competence of the Assembly when it still has so much bedding down to do? Does he further agree that, after the 2007 election, it should absorb the changes by splitting off the executive from the legislature long before it is given more powers? Does he agree that the management of the process is very poor?

David Davies: I fully agree with my hon. Friend, as I do on most matters that relate to devolution[Hon. Members: Most?] In fact, on virtually all matters, there is barely a cigarette paper to be put between us. My hon. Friend's point about allowing the Assembly to settle down is important. We had the referendum only seven years ago and the question that we should be addressing is that we have a Parliament in Scotland, an Assembly in Wales and a power-sharing arrangement in Northern Ireland, but nothing at all for the largest constituent part of the United Kingdom. That is the real problem that we have with the constitution at present, and that is what we should address.
	The changes to the voting system are being made for only one reason, and we all know that. They are being made for the benefit of the Wales Labour party. That is the only possible reason for the changes, and I thought that the flimsy excuses about Assembly Members who were worried because someone had opened an office in their constituency were pathetic. It has been my experience that whenever people want to protest about anything, the first person they go to is their constituency Member of Parliament and the second person is their constituency Assembly Member. Only if they meet with no luck from either will they find out who their regional list Members are. What is really annoying the Labour Assembly Members is not that they are at some sort of electoral disadvantage but that they have lost the huge advantage that comes with incumbency. That must be making many of them very worried.

David Jones: The hon. Gentleman refers to the fact that the Assembly is less remote from the people, but does not he agree that there is a particular concern in north Wales that Cardiff seems geographically and spiritually remote from the people of north Wales, so does he share my concern that the North Wales Regional Committee does not figure in the new legislation and that it has in fact been abolished?

Ian Lucas: As ever, my hon. Friend makes a valuable point. It is a great disappointment to me that no Assembly offices are based in Wrexham, the biggest town in north Wales. I hoped that the Assembly would have done more to bring offices to different parts of Wales, and indeed to bring more business to those areas.
	My second essential point was about the proposed provisions relating to the electorate and changes to the electoral system. I strongly support the proposal to disallow regional list Members from standing for constituencies. I would like the Bill to go further. Under the present Assembly electoral system, we have two votes. At the last Assembly election, I was able to vote for the Labour Assembly candidate in my constituency and on the regional list.

Ian Lucas: I understand that point. I am expressing my views to my Front Bench colleagues and I am sure that they are listening to them carefully. The same views have been expressed by other Labour Back Benchers today and I am sure that they will also be listened to carefully.
	There have been many accusations today from Opposition parties about Labour party gerrymandering, yet the Labour party is the only party to create an electoral system that disadvantages it. That is exactly what it did in 1999 when it set up the Assembly and allowed the introduction of proportional representation. It sent the Tories a lifeboat and a lifebelt. It gave the Liberal Democrats more representation than they had ever had and it helped out the nationalists. Our party is generous in its electoral system.
	Opposition parties have produced no evidence whatever that the modest proposal in the Bill would assist the Labour party. In north Wales, three of our candidates with extremely marginal seats will not have the lifebelt that the Labour party generously offered Opposition parties. They should not lecture us about gerrymandering. They should thank us for the resurrection of their political parties.

Cheryl Gillan: I presume that the hon. Gentleman would agree that the introduction of the complicated process of Orders in Council was a surprise to Lord Richard and his commission. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that perhaps it would be better to allow the fledgling Assembly that is facing difficulties in the House today to develop and to absorb the separation of the Executive from the legislature before overburdening it with the complex Orders in Council procedure that very few people seem to understand?

Roger Williams: I agree with the hon. Lady is one respect, namely, that the Orders in Council procedure is unnecessarily complicated. The Assembly will need some time to get to grips with the separation of the Executive from the legislature, but a commitment should have been given to follow the Richard commission's recommendation to move towards full legislative powers by 2011.
	We want to give politicians in Wales the powers to make the decisions that will shape the future of Wales, without having to respond to the diktats of Whitehall. We want to give the people of Wales the opportunity to hold those politicians to account. Instead of that, the Bill contains a detailed, empire-building plan for the Secretary of State, under which Wales will not be governed by sound constitutional principles, but by the mood and whim of its ruler. What we are witnessing is the making of a self-proclaimed king of Wales. I have some experience of that in my constituency, where Richard Booth proclaimed himself king of Hay, and I have some understanding of a regal coup when I see one, but the Secretary of State is taking powers that are completely out of proportion and certainly unnecessary.
	The truth is that Labour is split on devolution and always has been. That is why it gave birth to an emasculated Assembly in 1999, instead of a fully fledged Parliament. Six years on, Labour's devolution child may have been finally allowed to walk, but it has been placed in such powerful restrainers that it does so through no strength of its own. Indeed, under the Government's current proposals, the Welsh Assembly will be little more than a poodle on a retractable lead, held firmly in the Secretary of State's grip.
	The Welsh Liberal Democrats want the Assembly to be set free of Westminster meddling on devolved issues, so that it is capable of doing what is right for the interests of the people of Wales, not what is right for the Welsh Labour party. On the basis of our pro-devolution stance alone, the Government will have our support on Second Reading, as it is only reasonable to give everyone the opportunity to have a mature and open discussion about how Wales should move forward. However, let us be clear that we fundamentally disagree with many provisions in the Bill, such as the Orders in Council procedure, the Secretary of State's role, the trigger mechanism for the referendum, the electoral system and the Assembly's size, to name but a few. We will table a series of amendments during proceedings on the Bill to turn the Welsh Assembly into what we believe it should bea Welsh Senedd with primary law-making powers.

David Jones: I am making the point that at the time of the 1997 referendum, a significant majority of the Welsh electorate was not in favour of the Assembly, or was insufficiently persuaded of its merits to vote for it.
	The Assembly is a fact of life, but one must also acknowledge that as far as many electors in Wales are concerned, the jury is still out on whether it has been beneficial to the people of Wales overall. Many people in Walesand, perhaps, on both sides of the Houseare extremely disappointed by the Assembly's performance to date. On health, especially, it has been a less-than-conspicuous success. Waiting lists and times in Wales are significantly longer than those in England. In my constituency, to cite just one, it is virtually impossible to find an NHS dentist. There is not a huge amount to crow about regarding the Assembly's success.
	The Secretary of State has acknowledged that there is no consensus in Wales on full primary legislative powers for the Assembly. On 15 June, he said:
	we will call a referendum only if there is a consensus for one. There is no consensus for one now, and it would be lost.[Official Report, 15 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 267.]
	More recently, he said that neither he nor the First Minister were
	in the business of calling referendums we are going to lose.
	I agree entirely with the Secretary of State that there is no consensus in Wales for further devolution. Clearly, there is no such consensus. It might therefore be expected that the Government would wait to allow the current devolution settlement to bed in and to start proving its worth before granting further legislative competence to the Assembly.
	The Secretary of State contends that what is proposed in the Bill under stage 2the Order in Council measuresdoes not amount to such a significant extension of the Assembly's powers to merit a referendum. He said today that a modest transfer of powers was involved. The validity of that view depends to a great extent on the way that the Order in Council procedure would be operated. We await much more detail in that respect.
	The more widely drafted the Orders in Council, the less modest the transfer. It is abundantly clear that Assembly measures made as a result of powers granted via Orders in Council might be used to amend, extend or even repeal Acts of Parliament. The power is significant and goes a considerable distance beyond what was initially envisaged at the time of the referendum in 1997.
	The White Paper, A Voice for Wales, made it clear that the Assembly's role would be to take over the administrative functions of the Secretary of State for Wales, its legislative functions being confined to the passing of secondary legislation. The Bill makes it clear that an Assembly measure may make any provision that could be made by an Act of Parliament. We therefore have what the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) described as a kind of salami slicing. There is an extension of primary legislative competence to the Welsh Assembly.
	Furthermore, once an Order in Council has conferred enhanced legislative powers in relation to a matter, the competence conferred will be of a continuing nature. The Assembly will be able to revisit those powers conferred by the original Orders in Council. That will amount essentially to a permanent transfer of legislative competence in a large number of areas. As the years pass, so that competence will grow.

David Jones: That is not correct at all. The Order in Council procedure will add extra matters to fields in which devolution already exists, so the devolutionary powers will be extended. The purpose of the Order in Council procedure is clear: to devolve quasi-primary legislative powers to the Assembly without the need for a referendum.
	That was recognised by Lord Richard when he gave evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee. He said:
	Let's be frank about it, it is a device to avoid having to come to Westminster and ask for primary powers to be formally devolved. It is quite an interesting device . . . Westminster can say they have not devolved primary legislative powers, but depending on the way in which the Order in Council procedure is used, it could in effect be a concealed grant of almost a direct legislative competence down to Cardiff.
	What the proposals amount to is a kind of devolutionary creep. They are a stealthy means of extending more and more powers to the Assemblyconsiderably beyond what was envisaged in 1997 and what the Welsh people voted for in that year through a tortuous and opaque route of Orders in Council. Worryingly enough, the Orders in Council might be made with the minimum of debate in Parliament. We might be talking about one and a half hours of discussion in Standing Committee.

David Jones: My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Presiding Officer of the Assembly, Lord Elis-Thomas, recently said that the obtaining of Orders in Council will be nothing more than a formality. Of course, he is right. It is inconceivable so long as there are Labour Administrations in Westminster and in Cardiff that a request for an Order in Council would be refused. When there are Governments of different colours in Westminster and Cardiff, as will certainly happen one day, it would be virtually impossible for Westminsterfor the Secretary of State for Walesto refuse a request without triggering a constitutional crisis.
	It is extraordinary that any responsible Government should seek to promote a piece of legislation that has the seeds of constitutional strife built into it. If the Government consider that further devolved power should be given to the Assembly, they should confer those powers in a more honest and open manner: through primary legislation preceded by a referendum of the Welsh people. The Government have recognised, rightly, that the Welsh people probably have no stomach for more devolution. However, that might not be the case, so why not ask them now? The Secretary of State should show sufficient respect for the constitutional conventions of this country and for the people of Wales to ask them whether they want the Assembly to have more powers. The Orders in Council procedure is devious and dishonest. That is why the reasoned amendment is absolutely right.
	Similarly, the proposals for a referendum at some undetermined stage in the future are wholly bizarre. It seems extraordinary that the Government should place in a Bill provisions that may never be triggered. No doubt the Government hope that the presence in the Bill of arrangements for a future referendum will engender a feeling of inevitabilitya feeling that primary powers will be transferred come what may, and that it is a case of when, not whether.
	The proposals on electoral arrangements deserve particular condemnation. The Government have suggested that the present arrangement, whereby defeated constituency candidates can obtain a seat in the Assembly via the regional list,
	devalues the integrity of the electoral system in the eyes of the public and acts as a disincentive to voting in constituency elections.[Official Report, 15 June 2005; Vol. 435, c. 264.]
	No evidence of that sort was put before the Welsh Affairs Committeein fact, quite the contrary. The Electoral Commission said that that was not the case and so did the academics. The only evidence presented was hearsay evidence offered by the First Minister and the Secretary of State for Wales.
	The case constantly cited in support of their contention is that of my constituency, Clwyd West, where in 2003 four of the five candidates were elected to the Assembly, three through the regional list. Several points may be made about that contention. It was always a foreseeable consequence of the original devolution settlement that more than one candidate for a constituency would be elected, some through the regional list. That was inherent in the devolution settlement. The case of Clwyd West was extreme, but it should not have been unanticipatedit was always perfectly obvious that something of the sort would happen. Dr. Roger Scully of Aberystwyth university said in his evidence to the Select Committee:
	Frankly, if the Government did not realise when it brought in this White Paper that that would happen, they should have done, they were negligent in not realising that.
	The reason why the Government wish to amend the arrangements is fairly obvious: Labour has no regional list Members at the moment. It is clear that the presence of regional Members vying for constituency work must be something of a nuisance to the sitting constituency Members. Clearly, they are concerned that an effective and energetic regional Member will overshadow or cast in a poor light an ineffective constituency Member. However, that, too, was always perfectly foreseeable, and even if the proposals in the Bill were adopted, the position would remain the same: regional Members would continue to be able to vie with constituency Members in terms of constituency activity.
	I suspect that, in due course, the standing orders that we have heard about will be used to attenuate still further the role of regional Members. I think that regional Members will find that certain types of work are out of bounds. It is even possible that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies) suggested, allowances will be attenuated. It is clear that the Bill is intended to bolster Labour's position in the constituencies at the expense of regional Members. That is a reprehensible measure.

Jessica Morden: Given that we are running out of time, I shall make only one specific point that has not been mentioned so far.
	I support the Bill, and I support what it will keep. It will keep the foundation of the partnership that the Assembly has been able to build with people and organisations. For example, there are statutory duties to establish and maintain a partnership council with local government, to publish a voluntary sector scheme and to work with business organisations.
	I want to raise a concern concerning our trade union colleagues and the requirement to consult business, which does not extend to organisations that represent employees. This cannot be right. Welsh Assembly government consults trade unions and it would be incumbent on its successors to do the same. I further argue that the imbalance between the requirements for the local government voluntary sector and business organisations must be addressed in our consideration of the proposed legislation. Unions and business play a key role in this development in Wales, and the Bill does not take enough account of the need for strong working relations and consultative mechanisms between employee and employer organisations.
	The Bill contains a requirement for a schemes to be published for local government and for the voluntary sector, but not for business and trade unions. That should be rectified. I should be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would consider sympathetically an amendment on that issue.

Nigel Evans: I cannot begin to tell the hon. Lady how grateful we were to the Labour party for creating a system that it now wishes to alter. However, as I said, I am not a Lib Dem. If I were, I would have argued for PR, perhaps for Wales and Scotland, but not for England. We could gerrymander to see what system would benefit us, but I shall leave that to the Lib Dems. If, as has been said, the Labour party wishes to review arrangements and introduce a first-past-the-post system, we should at least consider such a proposal, because by meddling with the electoral system it will not resolve the problems which, it says, are the result of the list system. Those problems include list Members or regional Members setting up offices in other people's patches where they think they may do better in a future first-past-the-post election. That problem, however, will continue to exist unless the Welsh Assembly do something about it. The solution needs more thought, because the system is being changed for the wrong reasons. Let us be honestthe Government think that they have made a mistake, but their proposal fails to correct it. We should therefore take a little more time to look at the problem again.
	I commend the powerful speech of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). There will be problemsthere are no two ways about it. The last referendum on regional government was in the north-east of England, and it could not have gone down the pan in a bigger way. Even I was surprised at the size of the majority against the Government proposal but, having tried to give England a voice, they did not walk away from such a proposal. The fact is, the systems that they have introduced in Scotland and Wales, together with the changes that they propose to introduce in Wales, will make the situation worse. Far more legislation will affect England alone, but Members from Scotland and Wales will hold sway. The West Lothian question is not dead, and it will not go away. It must be addressed, but the problem has been made worse by the Bill.

Nigel Evans: That is what I thought as well, when I heard the argument. It would set a dangerous precedent to take account of the hours and who does what, and to create two-tier or two-status Welsh Assembly Members. If that happened in the Welsh Assembly, somebody might suggest examining what MPs are doing at Westminster and whether some have lesser jobs because of devolution. Somebody somewhere might devise a system for taking that into account.
	Finally, I shall say something about the Orders in Council, the referendum and giving the people of Wales a voice. That is why the Welsh Assembly was created, and Members have reminded us how close it came to not going ahead. However, there was a thin majority. I was on the Assembly referendum night programme and I remember that it came down to the final result. Peter Snow predicted that the people of Wales had voted no, but then the Carmarthen result came in and it was 11:11very tight indeed.
	The settlement is where we currently are, and to use a device proposed in the Bill to salami-slice legislative powers in favour of the Assembly in everything but name is dishonest. If that is what the Government want, and the Secretary of State said that he wanted the Welsh Assembly to have primary legislative powers, let us be adult and honest about it. Let us devise a question for the people of Wales and put it to them. If the Government are not prepared to do that in respect of primary legislative powers and still want to use the device of Orders in Council, let us at least put to the people of Wales the salami-slicing mechanism that would be used, and find out what they want. To do it dishonestly, without asking the people of Wales whether that is what they want, is not right.
	Contrary to what the hon. Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Mr. Williams) said, had we gone down that route in the first place and offered the people of Wales the same powers as the Scottish Parliament has, I believe the people of Wales would have voted no, particularly as regards the tax-varying powers. That is why the Government offered something less. It is wrong to give the people of Wales what the Government are offering, without giving them a voice. I thought we all believed in democracy. If we do, let us back it with our votes.

Stephen Crabb: Is the hon. Gentleman not aware of the evidence on the electoral arrangements provided to the Welsh Affairs Committee by academics and the Electoral Commission, which made the point that regardless of whether the changes benefit the Labour party, the perception that they are motivated by partisan interest is enough to turn off people from participating in the electoral process, which is a serious worry?

Albert Owen: I am not aware of the research to which the hon. Gentleman referred, but if he tells me what it is, I shall read it. On the ground, I know that people are confused, because they have told me so. As my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) said, when people vote for a party that comes top of the poll, they do not get the Member for whom they voted. I am not suggesting that the minority parties do not need assistance. Some hon. Members have argued that it would be unfair to move away from a dual mandate, but I say that the dual ballot paper is also unfair and that we should examine both systems equally.
	Finally, the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) mentioned regional committees, which have been wrongly omitted from the Bill. I believe in real devolutionnot the transfer of powers from London to Cardiff bay, but the transfer of powers from Cardiff bay to Colwyn bay and to Cemaes bay in my constituency. One of the purposes of devolution was to bring politics closer to the people of Wales, which has not happened. One of the reasons why it has not happened is because the regional committees are too weak and have become nothing more than talking shops. They talk openly about interesting subjects, but they do not do anything about them. I want the Bill to strengthen the regional dimension in Wales through real devolution to the regions, which could be done by strengthening the regional committees to include open debates and decision making or by the scrutiny committees visiting the regions, taking evidence and examining regional issues.
	The hon. Member for Clwyd, West mentioned that many people in north Wales feel isolated, which is because of the distance between politics in Cardiff and the rest of Walesin particular, the areas on the periphery. The Minister represents a constituency on the periphery of Wales, so I hope that he recognises the fear that politics is becoming too Cardiff-central. The only way in which to address the situation is to devolve power out to the regions through a mechanism such as the regional committees.

Hywel Williams: I welcome the Bill, which, for the faint-hearted, does not do a great deal as regards stage two powers and, for people such as me who are enthusiasts, does a great deal as regards stage three powers. In that sense, the Secretary of State is riding two horses, and he is to be congratulated. There is a great need for reform. I am afraid that in some quarters the Assemblythe Cynulliadhas gained the name of Cynlleied, or so little, because many people are disappointed with the level of powers that it has.
	I commend the report of the Welsh Affairs Committee to hon. Members. It contains a great deal of interesting evidence that will illuminate the debates in Committee and on Report and Third Reading. One matter that the Committee investigated was the referendum. At question 99, I asked Lord Richard why we should go for stage two of the Order-in-Council procedures, which are, as everyone accepts, fairly complicated and convoluted, instead of going straight for stage three. He replied that that question was not for him but for the Secretary of State. We received a response from the Secretary of State earlier, when he said of the referendum, I know it would fail. I do not know that it would fail; indeed, I feel that it would succeed. We in Plaid Cymru have confidence that people in Wales would see the virtue of having proper powers for the Assembly. It is often said that the Assembly needs to bed in. That is a vain hope given the limited powers that it has at present. It cannot give the people of Wales a proper service because it is disabled in that it cannot pass the simplest of laws on its own account.
	I should like to correct the hon. Member for Montgomeryshire (Lembit pik), who recruited Plaid Cymru into his party of people against having a referendum at all. We are in favour of having a referendum and would not support his point of view.
	Pre-legislative scrutiny has been commended as a way of looking at Orders in Council. Having taken part in that procedure, I have to say that it has been successful. For example, the Welsh Grand Committee has met to consider legislation and the Welsh Affairs Committee has met jointly with committees from the Welsh Assembly. However, it is significant that those joint meetings have on the whole concerned non-controversial matters. There is a danger that the procedure could be, to use the Secretary of State's phrase, Redwoodised if there was a difference of opinion between the Government in Cardiff and the Government down here in London. That would also be a danger if we had a Secretary of State who is fundamentally at odds with the Welsh Assembly Government. The discussion process in respect of Orders in Council could go badly wrong. The 60-day delay might be used by an unsympathetic Secretary of State to slow down the process and entangle it in undue legal procedures in the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Llwyd) outlined. I refer the House to page 38 of the Welsh Affairs Committee's report and to paragraph 131, in which, after consideration, the Committee, which is of course cross-party, would not recommend that the Secretary of State act as a filter.
	Another thing to draw to the attention of the House is the Salisbury convention, whereby if a matter is in a manifesto it is not opposed in certain circumstances. I asked the Secretary of State about that when he was giving evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee and I also asked the First Minister. Interestingly, the First Minister said that if the matter was in an Assembly manifesto it would not be opposed under the terms of the convention, but if it was a matter in the manifesto of one of the smaller parties, which had magically joined the other smaller parties, the issue would have to appear in each of the parties' manifestos beforehand, which would of course create a difficulty for smaller parties.
	Rather more interestingly, the Salisbury convention is after all only a convention, so an individual Member, a Committee, the Welsh Assembly Government or the Welsh Assembly itself, with the approval of the Secretary of State and of this House, might commend an Order in Council but it might be refused down the corridor. Perhaps I am over-egging the pudding, but that might be so. I was therefore interested to hear the comments of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), the Father of the House, who seemed to be commending the procedure and to be championing the cause of the other place, possibly in the face of the wishes of this place and of Cardiff.
	There has been a great deal of discussion about the proposed changes to the electoral system. The hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) made a significant point in saying that the evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee concerned the appearance of partisanshipthat that is how it would be interpreted by people voting in elections in Wales. I will not go into the theology of proportional representation, but it is significant that it was the Government's party that introduced the d'Hondt system that has led to the difficulties. Labour Back Benchers should not protest too much, because it was their Government who brought that in.
	The response of Glyn Mathias and the Electoral Commission was interesting. I refer Members to question 114 in the evidence. Glyn Mathias and the Electoral Commission, which is a properly independent body, said that there was no evidence in favour of change. However, when the Secretary of State and the First Minister appeared before us they asserted that there was great evidence and argument in favour of change. As far as I can see, they were assertions rather than evidence.
	Much has been made of international comparisons. One interesting comparison is the system that might have been adopted in Quebec, where additional members would be required to stand in seats, which would subject them to the rigours of proper competition face to face with another member in a constituency as well as standing for the list. I have great concerns about comments made by Labour Members on having two classes of Assembly Members. That is very dangerous and should be resisted as much as possible. I do not think that it would be possible to go down the Quebec route, but it is not a matter of one choice or another. We should look at this creatively so that the reputation of the electoral system in Wales is sustained and we get the best to represent the people of Wales in the Assembly. That is what this should be about; it should not be about real or imagined party advantage.
	I would like to ask other questions, but I will not detain the House, apart from referring to my earlier question about where list Members should locate their offices. Should they be banned from working in constituencies where they might subsequently stand?

Martin Caton: During the period before the 1997 general election I campaigned, within my party and outside it, for the creation of a powerful, accountable, democratic body to take over all the policy areas for which the then Welsh Office was responsible. I was secretary of the West Glamorgan campaign for a Welsh Assembly. I submitted a policy paper for the Welsh Labour party commission when it was gathering evidence to inform the devolution policy that we were to put to the people in the election. I called for the creation of an 80-Member Assembly with legislative powers over all devolved matters and limited tax-varying powerswhat we now call the Scottish model. I still believe that there is a practical and logical coherence in such a policy, but I am also convinced that had we put it to the country in the referendum of September 1997especially with the prospect of independent tax-raising powers for the Assemblywe would have lost the vote, and would probably have lost the chance of democratic devolution for another generation.
	It is with that dubious track record of judgment in this sphere, and with due humility, that I venture to comment on the next stage of what is clearly turning out to be a process rather than an event. Of course, we now have the advantage of six years of the Assembly's doing its job on the basis of the Bill that we debated in 1997 and 1998. We also have the benefit of academic studies and reviews, and of inquiries by the Assembly itself and the Welsh Affairs Committee. Most significantly, I believe, we have the report of the Richard commission, which worked for a year assessing the adequacy of the current settlement and developing proposals for the future. As we all know now, Richard identified a fundamental weakness in the corporate structure of the Assemblywhat we called the local government model during our debate on the original Bill. On the basis of the evidence that it gathered, the commission also argued that the Assembly would not fulfil its full potential with the current limitations on its powers, and suggested that if those powers were extended, membership of the Assembly would have to be increased. At the same time, it identified problems with the additional-Member electoral system, which was created to deliver a degree of proportionality in the results of election to the Assembly.
	The commission's proposed solutions were legislation to create a separation between executive and legislative functions, a timetable for the transfer of primary legislative powers to the Assembly by 2011, and enlargement of the Assembly to 80 Members, all elected by means of the single transferable vote. I think I am alone on the Labour Benches, certainly today, in being able to say that I would have been happy if my party, in the Government and the Assembly, had welcomed those proposals and set about turning them into practice as quickly as possible. I know that I am in the minority among Welsh Labour Members, and perhaps even more so among rank-and-file Labour party members throughout Wales. I freely acknowledge that the Bill is a compromise. However, I do not agree with the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), who described it as such but also described it as very weak. I believe that it is a robust and workable compromise.
	When the Government produced the White Paper last June, I studied it and asked myself three basic questions. First, would it give the people of Wales more control over policy decisions that affect their daily lives? I believe that the answer is yes. Secondly, was it likely to improve the effectiveness of the National Assembly in delivering for the people of Wales? I believe that the answer is yes. Thirdly, would it put the brakes on any further progress towards democratic devolution? My answer to that is Definitely not: quite the opposite.
	Although the White Paper, and hence the Bill, did not propose the same solutions as the Richard commission in every instance, to a large extent they identified the same problems with the status quo: the corporate structure, the need for separation between legislative and scrutiny roles and executive roles, and the problems with the additional-Member system.
	Clearly, there are different solutions, but I do not have the time to discuss my concerns about the electoral proposals in the Bill. I think it would have been better to go for a single transferable vote system, but it is not true to say that democracy in Wales will end suddenly if these provisions are carried. We will still have a vibrant democracy and a proportional element. The Bill is worth supporting and I ask hon. Members to do so.

Julie Morgan: I strongly support devolution. I voted for it in 1979 and was disappointed when it was so overwhelmingly defeated in the first referendum. When I became a Member here, I was pleased to take part in a debate on the Government of Wales Act 1998. That was a great experience for a new Welsh Member. However, some of the confusion that arose during the passage of the Act is only now being corrected.
	I am pleased that there is almost universal support for getting rid of the corporate body status and for moving to a clearer division between the executive and the legislative functions. I support the moves to enhance the Assembly's powers and the methods in the Bill bring about the maximum change possible in terms of law-making powers with the minimal constitutional disruption.
	I support primary legislative powers for the Assembly but what is proposed in the Bill is the best way forward at the moment with the option of a referendum in the future. I do not know whether a referendum could be won on the issue if it were held today. I could not hazard a guess. But if we have a referendum, we will spend time and effort arguing the issues, time and effort that could be better used to improve things for the people of Wales.
	Richard made the case for 80 Assembly Members and I supported most of the report, but the Bill is a practical way forward. It is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Mr. Caton) said, a compromise but one around which I hope all pro-devolution parties can unite.
	The Bill's mechanism whereby powers can be conferred upon the Assembly on a case-by-case basis certainly maintains the involvement of Members of Parliament. The Conservatives are trying to make a case for opposing the Bill, but there is no reason at all for a referendum on these modest proposals.
	If we had had those Orders in Council already, there are many instances in which we could have moved quickly ahead in Wales when policies different from those here in Westminster were advocated. I am thinking particularly about smoking. I had a private Member's Bill on smoking and I know that the Welsh Assembly has supported in principle a total ban on smoking in all workplaces and public places. It voted in January 2003 to set up an all-party working party, and voted on 25 May 2005 for a ban. Yet as things stand, we are totally dependent on the health legislation going through this House before we are able to use the powers available to us in Wales that would result in a total ban.
	That is a good illustration of the practical way in which the Orders in Council procedure would enable us to do things in Wales without that being subject to a blocking process here and without taking up time on the Floor of the House. It is an example of the way in which Orders in Council could be used to ensure that what the Assembly and the people of Wales want to happen does take place. There are many similar practical examples.
	I am pleased to press for more powers for the Assembly, but I have been surprised at what it has been able to do with its existing powers. It is interesting to note that some trailblazing schemes that have been followed by the rest of the country were introduced without any legislative powers at all, such as free bus passes for pensioners. That scheme was introduced by my Assembly colleague, the Minister Sue Essex, and it is now being followed in England. Free prescriptions will have come in by the next Assembly elections, and I would not be surprised if that scheme were followed in other parts of the UK. The Scottish Executive are looking into it, and interest has been expressed in England. Many of these policies were introduced in the Assembly without the need for such legislative powers.
	It is disappointing that so many Opposition Members have failed to point out the Assembly's great achievements, a couple of which I have just mentioned. We needed primary legislation for the Children's Commissioner for Wales, and we need it for the commissioner for older people. That legislation, which is a world first, is going through the House of Lords at the moment and will shortly come to us. All such initiatives need primary legislation, but if the Bill had already been passed, we could have got this measure through without taking up time on the Floor of the House of Commons, thereby enabling other legislation to go through.
	In conclusion, as I said, I have always been a strong devolutionist and have always pressed for more powers for the Assembly. I believe that that is the right thing to do and that it is in the interests of the people of Wales. My constituents voted against an Assembly at the second referendum. I am not sure what they would do now if they could vote at a referendum, but I think that many more would vote for an Assembly now than did during the second referendum. There is a big job ahead in terms of showing what devolution can do, and has done, for Wales, but the case has been made for increased powers for the Assembly and the Bill is the best way of proceeding.

Nia Griffith: It gives me great pleasure to speak on this Bill, as I know that it would have gladdened the heart of one of my predecessors: that great Welsh statesman, the right hon. James Griffiths, who, in the 1940sway ahead of his parliamentary colleagueswas keen on recognising Wales as a separate political unit and on establishing a Wales Office. Eventually, he influenced opinion and was instrumental in devising Labour's Welsh policy to that effect during the 1959 election. He pledged a future Government to the inclusion of a Secretary of State for Wales in the Cabinet, and to specifying the devolution of administration.
	When that future Government was eventually elected in 1964, Jim Griffiths became the first Secretary of State for Wales and set up the Wales Office in Cardiff and London. In the 1970sagain, he was ahead of his timehe favoured a democratically elected national assembly, but wanted Wales to remain an integral part of the UK and to be represented at the highest level in Cabinet by its own Secretary of State. Jim would have been proud to see this Bill, which reflects the growing confidence that people in Wales have in the Assembly Government.
	I look forward to the introduction of the Order in Council mechanism, which will enable legislative initiatives by the Assembly Government, within their spheres of competence, to be fast-tracked through our complicated Westminster procedures. The Bill enshrines in law the opportunity for a referendum on further devolution of powers, once there is a two-thirds majority in the Assembly and the approval of this place and the other place. That prepares the way for elected representatives here and in the Assembly to proceed with a referendum on further powers for the Assembly, if they feel that that reflects the mood of the people of Wales.
	It saddens me that some regional AMs have misused their position, and it is precisely because of that misuse that we need to bring in this legislation, which will prohibit candidates from standing both on the regional list and as constituency candidates. Regional AMs have a golden opportunity, without constituency responsibility, to take a much broader perspectivea regional or all-Wales view. Instead, some regional AMs use their time and resources to concentrate on one constituency to the detriment of the rest of their region. For example, one regional AM in a press release today describes herself as a Llanelli-based AM, and is bandying about comparative expenditure figures for Prince Philip hospital, in Llanelli, and for West Wales general hospital, in Carmarthen. She makes no mention of Withybush hospital, in Haverfordwest, or Bronglais hospital, in Aberystwyth, which are also in her region. Any regional AM worth her salt would not quote meaningless past figures out of context, but would look to the future impact of the impending review of NHS services on the whole of her region. It is not surprising that people will interpret that as blatant electioneering.
	Time after time, my constituents are amazed that the candidate who was defeated in the constituency election can be allowed to set herself up in this way. However, I find it incredible that the hon. Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) says that parties do not have enough quality candidates to field different candidates for constituency and list. What a sad state to be in.
	As for arguments that this reform is partisan, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out that it could have an equally negative effect on Labour Assembly Members. My friend and colleague, Catherine Thomas, Assembly Member for my constituency of Llanelli, has a majority of 21 votes. Under this reform, she will not have the option of standing for both the constituency and the list, unlike her predecessor, who on losing in the 2003 election, got in on the list. Catherine Thomas, like candidates from all parties, has had to make the choice for 2007.
	The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) is right that even under this legislation regional Members could still choose to focus on one constituency, but they would not have actually lost an election, with the subsequent loss of credibility with the electorate, who often feel very angry about such situations. The Bill will not stop an existing list Member from standing for a constituency, and therefore it is absurd to refer to the change as partisan.
	The Bill recognises the way in which the Assembly is increasingly winning the confidence of the Welsh people and I know that if he were alive today, Jim Griffiths would join me in welcoming the enhanced powers and the more effective systems that will lead to the better delivery of services for the people of Wales.

Si�n James: I, too, wish to add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan), and to express my sympathy for the families of Lord Merlyn-Rees and Lord Stratford. I did not have the honour of serving with them in this place, but I have met both of them. On the last occasion on which I spoke to Lord Merlyn-Rees he was very elderly, but very erudite and knowledgeable about the ways of the other place. I learnt much from him.
	I welcome the Bill and fully endorse its three main aims of enhancing the legislative powers of the Assembly, ending the confusing corporate status of the Assembly and addressing the issue of dual candidacy. We have heard much about the latter today, but I want to address a positive aspect of the Bill.
	I am a committed devolutionist. My first vote as a young mother was in the 1979 referendum. I was so excited about that vote and so disappointed that we did not achieve devolution for Wales. But we stuck with it and, eventually, the Labour party delivered it. We are the real party of devolution. We can make this a workable Bill and we must take this next logical step on the journey. We are halfway there and we must complete it in the fullness of time. I have no concern about that. We must take things slowly and at a pace people understand.
	The provision for a referendum is important, as is the way in which it is triggered. We must take the doubts and concerns of constituents into consideration. Several hon. Members have claimed today that it is not an issue in their constituencies, but it is in mine. People are confused about what is happening, both at Westminster and in the Assembly. I spend much time explaining my role and that of Val Lloyd, the Assembly Member for Swansea, but then we reach the inevitable questionWell, who are the other lot? Then I become a walking, talking advertisement for the regional list Members, because I have to explain who they are and the region they represent. That is where things go a little fuzzy and confusing. When one tries to explain the regionality of it and the roles and responsibilities of regional list Members, people are confused.

Si�n James: They are not a huge issue; the big issues are, as we have said, public services and standards, but when we start to debate things in greater depth, confusion occurs. I am dreadfully sorry if you have not taken the time

Dominic Grieve: It has been a pleasure to participate in the debate. I well remember the original Government of Wales Bill, and I spent many hours in the House considering it, as I did with the Scotland Bill, during my first year in Parliament. The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. David) is right to suggest that it was thought that such legislation would usher in a new, inclusive form of politics. Indeed, the word holistic was bandied about the Chamber so much that I began to think that it was almost a term of abuse. It is worth bearing that in mind, because now that we revisit the matter eight years later, we must be careful not to commit similar mistakes again.
	I agree with the right hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Murphy), who said that we should be careful about getting too bogged down in constitutional dogma and that what people want are better services and more accountability. I accept that argument, but equally, as I am sure he will have noted from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), there are consequences of devolution, particularly in inequality of service provision, that cannot simply be lightly disregarded on cross-border issues.
	As was highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), dislike of the Assembly's failings and inefficiencies is a phenomenon in Wales, just as there are those who approve of the way that it has operated. My hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, West (Mr. Jones) pointed out that there appears to be no consensus on what further form legislative devolution should takesomething that was ultimately acknowledged by many hon. Members on both sides of the House. I certainly suspect that my cousins in north Wales who have farmed in the Clwydian range for a very long time would heartily wish to see the Assembly disappear, but they are as Welsh as any of the Labour Members who have spoken. That happens to be their view.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Mr. Crabb) pointed out that only 25 per cent. of the electorate voted for the Assembly in the first place. With that in mind, we must approach the question of how the Assembly can be improved. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) made clear at the outset, we want to try to make the Assembly work well. We accept that some provisions in the Bill are long overdue, particularly the separation of the Executive and the legislature, which perhaps reflects the end of inclusivity. Indeed, in so far as the Government wish to put a referendum to the Welsh people about whether they want primary legislative powers for their Assembly, one cannot possibly disagree with asking that question even if one has reservations about the proposals. The problem, however, is that that is not the main part of the Bill, and certainly not the main part of the Bill as it will ultimately affect the majority of people in Wales in the short-term future.
	What the Government plan to do is rather surprising. When we debated the first Government of Wales Bill, one of the arguments put forward was that the rise in the use of statutory instruments as a form of governance in this country meant that there was a growing disconnection between Parliament and those being governed, and that one of the ways of dealing with that problem in the Welsh context was to enable the Assembly to be the implementers of statutory instruments. Of course, it was to be denied primary legislation. However, the Government's proposals in this Bill are a Minister's dream. They will take the remaining areas of primary legislation and convert them into a form of statutory instrument over which the House effectively abdicates all responsibility.
	There is a purpose behind primary legislation, which we do not do very well in the House any more. That is one of the reasons why we have the debates about devolution. If we were not so absurdly guillotined when we are in Committeethe point applies not just to this Bill, but to all the legislation that we considerthe process of debate would enable proper scrutiny to take place. Over the past eight years, we have seen time and again the Government's desire to cut that scrutiny, but now they suddenly come along and say that it does not matter because they are going to cut it down even further and hand it over by diktat of the Secretary of State, with massive reserve powers for the Executive, to the Welsh Assembly, which will be a substitute for the scrutiny that this House will not provide.
	I say to the Secretary of State that that is a serious constitutional innovation and change. If that is the way that the Government wish to proceed, and if they believe that it is the futurethe approach could be applied not just to the Welsh Assembly, but to regional bodies, the London assembly or any other form of governmentthis must be an issue on which the public are consulted first. There are serious implications and the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) highlighted the problems that can flow from devolution, in terms both of the uncoupling of the constituent parts of the United Kingdom and in terms of the quality of government that people receive.

Bill Etherington: After first wishing you a happy new year, Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek your indulgence because I find myself in a very unusual position. I have brought forward this petition on behalf of my constituent, Mr. Ron McCullum. I do not agree with the petition, but I would not in any way wish to prevent him from having his rights in this House, and in fairness I have brought it forward. It is right that I say that in fairness to Mr. McCullum and myself.

Bill Etherington: It is not about me, Mr. Speakerthat is one thing that is for certain.
	The petitioner, Mr. McCullum, has had a long-running dispute with just about everyone in society about asbestos in his house. He has managed to get a few people to support him, and that is the basis of his petition.

Jacqui Smith: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Linda Gilroy) on securing this debate. I thank her for raising issues vital to her constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck), but which are also of wider relevance in the world of education.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton set the debate in its local context and I agree that we see a generally improving picture in the city of Plymouth. The authority has made good recent progress and I echo her tribute to the Plymouth heads, teachers and support staff who have worked so hard to secure that progress. I agree that those improvements can also be attributed to the leadership and strategic vision of leading members of staff, and to the director of children's services, Bronwen Lacey, and her team.
	Another important factor in Plymouth's recent success, which my hon. Friend identified, is good partnership working across schools. Such partnerships are fostered by central Government programmes that are providing substantial new resources and investment for the most hard-pressed schools, but also by key collaborations. In both the primary and secondary sectors, most of the trends in Plymouth are at least satisfactory and sometimes good, but my hon. Friend herself posed the important question: how can we make school standards in an authority such as Plymouth really take off? According to most measures of school performance, the authority is just below the national benchmark, although it is closing the gap. I know that she has a vision that Plymouth can become an excellent modern European city. She knows that, to make that vision a reality, Plymouth must also lead the way with first-rate education and world-class standards. Both my hon. Friends and the local council aspire to that. It is my aspiration, too, and it links directly to the Government's proposals in the schools White Paper.
	Both my hon. Friends are worried that the proposals might prove counter-productive in terms of helping the authority to raise standards. I want to reassure them that, far from being marginalised, the role of authorities such as Plymouth will increase. They will be at the forefront of our drive to generate the step change in standards that we all want.
	Our proposals on tailored, or personalised, learning show that we are providing substantial resources for expert teaching materials, and guidance and training to widen access to small group and one-to-one tuition in English and maths for schools with the most underperforming pupils. We will provide training, so that each school has at least one lead professional to help provide tailored lessons, coupled with substantial additional support from the national strategies consultants. These policies will not promote a two-tier system; quite the reverse.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton rightly referred to the links between learning and achievement and wider social and family challenges. The changes that we are proposing for schools, including trust schools, fit absolutely with the system-wide changes being introduced as a result of Every Child Matters. They are completely compatible with policies to aid the most disadvantaged children. For example, we expect all schools, including trust schools, to provide access to extended services. Again, these are policies that will benefit disadvantaged groups.
	We want to make every school a good school and to expand the number of good places available to parents. That is the policy at the heart of the White Paper. Let me explain why my hon. Friend's fears, which she illustrated through the hypothetical examples of school A and school B, are not well founded. First, let us consider admissions. I appreciate her concern about a competitive admissions arrangement, as she described it, especially in an area with selective schools, but I can assure her that no school will be allowed to introduce selection, and that no selective school will be able to expand. Trust schools will work under exactly the same regime on admissions as all other schools. That means working within the law that outlaws selection by ability and the admissions code. Local authorities will continue to be able to refer objections to the schools adjudicator for legally binding determination, and they will continue to co-ordinate the admissions application process for parents to all maintained schools, and academies.
	Moreover, in future, we intend to make local authorities the key decision maker about the overall pattern of provision in an area, by abolishing the school organisation committee, so that it will be for local authorities to make the decision on whether a popular school should be able to expand. That decision should be made in the interests of pupils and parents, not to protect institutions. While it is right that the local authority takes account of the impact on neighbouring schools, that should not be the sole factor in reaching a decision. If a large group of parents proposes a new school to satisfy an unmet need, the local authority will, rightly, be under a duty to respond.
	The White Paper offers a new, exciting opportunity for a different sort of expansion. To go back to my hon. Friend's example, there is no reason why school A should not become a trust school. Experience shows that strong schools with dynamic and committed leaders are often very willing to help weaker schools improve. The heads and governors of such schools recognise that they should use their expertise and good practice for the benefit of the entire local community. Such heads are often looking for new challenges and, moreover, recognise that the arrangements very often also strengthen the stronger school, for example by developing middle leaders and attracting new and able staff. Even in less well performing schools, there are many lessons to be learned from collaboration.
	Why not have a federation between school A and school B, designed to strengthen both schools, with expertise being shared under a common school ethos and a shared trust, dedicated to excellence? Perhaps they can bring in further drive and expertise from community organisations, higher education or a local employer. I know that my hon. Friend is ambitious to develop the science expertise in Plymouth and perhaps a link could be made in that direction.
	There will not be the same solution everywhere, but there could be real opportunities to support even more powerful and permanent collaborations through the trust model. Another crucial point is the overarching role of the authority in driving up standards. To take my hon. Friend's example a little further, if school B were reluctant to set a strategy for improvement, or unreasonable in rejecting collaborative opportunities, there would in future be increased powers for authorities to take necessary action. That is another central theme to the White Paperthe role of authorities in raising standards. They must be ready with decisive plans for radical action when schools go into special measures or get a notice to improve. However, I am pleased to note that Plymouth has a good recent record of supporting schools that have failed Ofsted inspections and I hope that that will continue and be strengthened by the proposals in the White Paper.
	I wish now to deal with the very specific questions my hon. Friend asked. First, on schools using trust status to avoid closure or amalgamation, I have already stated that, with the abolition of the school organisation committees, it is authorities that will take the statutory decisions. Authorities will have new duties to promote choice, diversity and fair access and to be responsive to parental representations. We expect them to take those duties seriously, and one of the roles of the schools commissioner will be to see that they do so. We are aware that good authorities already keep provision in their area under review and are responsive to the views of parents, but there is a real opportunity for authorities to get out, to ask parents who have not always had a voice what they want to see in local schools and to reflect that in their important strategic planning role.
	On the third point, about funding a borrowing requirement, I can confirm that local authorities will remain responsible for funding the maintenance of a foundation or trust school's buildings, and that the capital arrangements will largely operate as now. All schools will receive devolved formula capital and be able to apply to their local authority for larger projects. I can assure my hon. Friends that trust schools will remain a full part of capital spending planning. They will remain part of the building schools for the future scheme, which will focus on the needs of schools and their pupils, not the type of school. Trust schools will not be able to tear up a PFI contract into which the local authority has entered.
	I understand the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) about the level of PFI credits made available to Plymouth. They have to be seen in the context of historically high levels of capital spending, but I hope to be able to respond to her letter and concerns in full.
	To conclude, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton for bringing this important debate to the House. She has rightly raised issues of the highest importance to her constituents and challenged us to outline how the next stage of reform will increase standards for them and play to the strengths both of schools in her constituency and of her local authority.
	Everything about the White Paper is about improving standards. Turning around failing schools quicker: that is about improving standards. More one-to-one and small group tuition: that is about improving standards. More involvement of parents in their child's education: that is about improving standards. Stronger rights for teachers to be clear about their ability to discipline: that is about providing the basis to improve standards. Making greater use of the energy and dynamism in our communitieswhich my hon. Friend has identified in Plymouththrough trust schools: that is an opportunity to improve standards.
	There is not a blueprint for every area of the country, but I believe that in sharing the values that my hon. Friend has identified, the White Paper provides important opportunities.
	The motion having been made after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr Deputy Speaker adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
	Adjourned accordingly at eight minutes to Eleven o'clock.